"Bucket-filling" How can we fill our buckets?

Explaining personal relationships among friends and showing virtues, can be a tough subject with kindergarteners. It is important to bring down the complex level of emotions and explain empathy and others' feelings to these children. They must know that feelings are felt by the child themselves and the other student, as well as there are consequences for bad feelings and rewards for good feelings.

This book, and this company (that has another book called "How can I fill my bucket?") has done a phenomenal job explaining the concept of our own feelings in addition and vs. other's feelings.

The concept of bucket-filling is as follows: When someone helps or does something nice, it fills their own bucket and the bucket of the person they are positively helping.

When someone is mean, rude, or taking away from someone's happiness, they are emptying their bucket and the other person's bucket as well. This author and concept does a concrete job in explaining something as abstract and complex as emotional ad actions. This can easily be tied to virtues conversations in Catholic schools and how the students can fill everyone's bucket including their own, by showing your virtues. This book has been displayed in many schools and has been a focus to many classrooms.

It is important to continue to teach children what is expected of them. If they are not taught, then they have no knowledge of what their job is, what they are doing right and what they need to do to improve. Communication is key.