Bucket Filling is a phrase that you will hear often in our classroom.
This idea comes from a book called Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud. There are two other books as well.Fill A Bucket: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Children and How Full Is Your Bucket?.
The basic concept of bucket filling is that we all have an invisible bucket that we carry with us. When we are kind and caring towards others, we fill their buckets and our own buckets. However, when we are mean or uncaring, we are dipping into others' buckets. Bucket Dippers make others feels sad, lonely, and upset.
We are learning that Bucket Dippers are often lonely and sad themselves. They think that they can fill their own buckets by emptying someone else's bucket. What ends up happening is that both people have empty buckets.
We are also learning that we can put a lid on our buckets when others' try to dip into them. This is a way to not allow others' choices to impact our own feelings. Understanding that the way someone else acts is their issue and not your own is a very difficult concept for many young children (and adults!) Using a lid is a way of protecting the positive feelings we have about ourselves and not allowing someone else to make us feel bad.
Over the year, you may hear your child using the phrase bucket filling, bucket dipping and using a lid. I hope that this brief outline helps you to understand what it is all about.
For more information, please check out this website:
http://bucketfillers101.com
