Innisfail Family Day Home Society spokesperson Reshann Butts wants to teach children how to reward their peers by recognizing individual accomplishments and focusing on positive behaviour.
Butts told parents, business owners and concerned citizens about her goal to create a visual education program for children up to the age of five years old on Nov. 20 to raise awareness about National Child Day.
“National Child Day is November 20,” she explained to the group. “We're working on putting an event that week, we just don't have any concrete plans on an event yet, but maybe at the next Community Partners meeting.”
According to the UNICEF website, National Child Day is celebrated in recognition of the United Nations (UN) Declaration on the Rights of the Child and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The goal is meant to encourage young Canadians to express themselves and shape their own futures by ensuring positive change.
And in spite of the uncertainty of plans for an official event, Butts and the Town of Innisfail's family and community support services manager Tammy Oliver-McCurdie explained their plan is to host a bucketfilling workshop at FCSS, preschools, daycares and the Innisfail Municipal Library this fall.
“I've been contacting a lot of agencies in Innisfail and Penhold as well that work with children to see if they want to help out with National Child Day and what we're doing is bucketfilling,” said Butts. “FCSS actually purchased you guys a book and a bucket. Tammy is really excited about it. She wants to make it a town-wide initiative and that. Hopefully we can get to that.”
In fact, the duo recently purchased some promotional materials to tie into the initiative this year.
The duo has prepared a bucketfilling chant for children, a reading list and short activity that includes filling a small, colourful bucket with pompoms and emptying it to illustrate their point.
“It's really simple,” said Butts. “It's just another way to get kids to think about self regulation, how they can calm themselves down and how other people do stuff that affects them inside -- they can see it and recognize how to be a good friend.
“It's about how being a friend helps fill their bucket and how being mean to somebody empties their bucket. It's a concrete way for kids to get that.”
For more information about bucketfilling, visit www.bucketfillers101.com.
