Featured on the Hong Kong Economic Journal (August 13, 2015)
“Mummy, thank you for filling my bucket today”
One parent just came and shared that her son said that to her last night as she was reading to him. What exactly did he mean?
Eugene (not his real name) was in the class that focused on the topic of ‘Caring for Others’ and in his class, he read the book “Have you filled a bucket today?”. This delightful children’s book talks about how everyone has an invisible bucket. This bucket is to hold all the love and care we have and when it is full, it makes us happy; but when it is empty, we feel sad. So the way to be happy is to have a full bucket so we should be filling other people’s buckets by showing them love and care. As Eugene’s mum tucked him into bed at night and read him a bedtime story, it filled his bucket and was thankful for that.
And it’s wonderful when people fill our buckets. We feel loved and possibly warm and fuzzy inside. But it doesn’t stop there. It’s also about filling other people’s buckets to make THEM feel cared for and loved. Jonathan (not his real name) was also reading the book in class and learnt about the importance of filling other people’s buckets. The next day, I found a sealed envelope on my desk that had been placed there that morning. As I opened to read it, it said “Happy Birthday Ms Christine!”. Jonathan had found out it was my birthday so when he went home, he made me a birthday card. After placing it on my desk, he shared with his teacher that he had filled my bucket by gifting me with a thank you card. Boy, was he right! My bucket was filled with his love and thoughtfulness that day.