Bucket fillers and dippers

When a student has a contagious illness, as the school nurse, one of my biggest jobs is to protect the school community from contracting the infection. I send students and sometimes even staff home. There are multiple ways, however, where I do encourage contagiousness. Recently, I witnessed it spread through our school like the common cold.

The contagions are kindness, laughter, compliments, hugs and heart-felt smiles. The vector of transmission for this infection came from Knik Elementary School Principal Traci Pedersen. She shared a fun and uplifting children's book with me, "Have You Filled a Bucket Today? A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids," by Carol McCloud and illustrated by David Messing.

It is a sweet story that teaches children and adults alike that we are all born with invisible buckets. Our buckets hold all our happy feelings and good thoughts about ourselves. When we have a full bucket, we feel good. When it is empty, we are sad or feel lonely.

The only way to fill our bucket is to fill someone else's for them. A bucket filler is a person who says or does things that are loving, caring and kind. When we fill other's buckets, our buckets automatically fill. Sometimes when a bucket is empty, one may try to fill their own bucket by doing mean things to others, like bullying. When we say or do mean things, we become bucket dippers, emptying not only others' buckets, but ours as well. Being a bully never fills our own bucket.

Immediately after reading this book and proudly placing "I'm a bucket filler" sticker on, I shared with our principal, counselors, registrar and anyone else who came by and heard us chatting about such a fun idea.

They saw my sticker and wanted one too! They had to read the book and decide if they were bucket fillers, then they could have a sticker. We can be negatively contagious or positively contagious.

Now it's your turn to decide if you are going to be a bucket dipper, or a bucket filler. Now that you know how you can fill the buckets of others, go out and try. Every day we can become a little bit better at filling those buckets. You can start today - right now - and see how many people in our community you can infect with your loving kindness. How many buckets can you fill today?

Wendy DeGraffenried is a registered nurse, tai chi instructor, creative designer of Alaska Transplant Clothing Co. and school nurse at Wasilla Middle School.