The Parents’ Voice By Shelley Heaphy

Lead by example was a thought that occurred to me after my daughter came home last week talking about filling her bucket. “Bucket?” I asked, “what kind of bucket?” She showed me her hands and said, “mom the bucket is my heart.”
At school they had talked about the kind things they could do for others to make them happy and by extension make her feel good too. I absolutely loved and was grateful that she was being taught this at school. She was proud as a peacock after she made me a brand new recipe book, read stories to her brother and helped her sister clean up her room. So much bucket filling.
This conversation and activity brought me to a few more thoughts though, one being that this is the exact thing we need to be teaching our children. Kindness, love, empathy, respect and sympathy are the qualities we need to help instill in our children especially in today’s harsh, scary world.