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Intentions, Puns, and the Sanity Maintenance Group: Ringing in 2026
26 Plays5 days ago
Welcome to Episode 24 of On the Ground Parenting! As we stand on the cusp of a brand new year, hosts Sandy, Sam, and Kelly gather to bid farewell to 2025 and look ahead to 2026. Instead of rigid resolutions that often lead to a sense of failure, the team explores the power of setting intentions and aspirations that allow for progress without the pressure of perfection.
The episode is filled with laughter and practical ideas for low-key New Year's Eve fun:
- Mad Libs Demo: The team demonstrates how this simple word game can result in hilarious, distorted stories—perfect for a family gathering.
- The Year in Review: Kelly shares a family tradition of writing a story about the year's adventures with blanks for family members to fill in, while Sandy discusses her "sanity maintenance" group's annual "Who Said What?" quiz.
- Intentional Pauses: The hosts discuss using the quiet time before school starts to reflect on which family activities to keep and which to shift to help the household function better.
The team also highlights Bounce Back and Thrive (BBT), a free 10-week evidence-based resiliency program they will be offering online in the new year to help parents build their own strength and support their children through life's meltdowns.
Connect with Us
We would love to hear your New Year's intentions or your favorite "groaner" jokes!
To support the show and keep our programming free for all families, visit us at patreon.com/onthegroundparenting
On the Ground Parenting is a production of Muskoka Family Focus Parent Education Program. Happy New Year!
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Transcript
Introduction to On the Ground Parenting
00:00:00
Speaker
On the Ground Parenting is a project of Muskoka Family Focus, a registered Canadian charity. They rely on your support to keep the show going and to continue their great work helping families.
00:00:11
Speaker
To connect with our hosts and to show your support, join us at patreon.com forward slash on the ground parenting. You can join for free or for any amount you would like to give.
Reflecting on the New Year and Traditions
00:00:48
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to On the Ground Parenting. I am Sandy Inkster and I'm joined with my parent ed colleagues. Sam and Kelly. Do you believe it? We're saying farewell to 2025. It's 2026. We're on the cusp of it. And woohoo!
00:01:05
Speaker
It's a night when some people like to celebrate a lot, maybe too much, and maybe other people are a little bit like me and you're a little more low-key. But we do like to talk about what families might be able to do, how they could celebrate. And we've got a few game ideas that we're going to offer in this session. And the first one is Mad Libs.
00:01:28
Speaker
If you've never heard of Mad Libs before, It's maybe four or five sentences. You write a paragraph or you go online and you find a Mad Lib and there are blanks for words or numbers. And we've written one that's applicable to us somewhat. And we're going to demonstrate what a Mad Lib is. So Sam, Kelly, are you ready?
00:01:50
Speaker
Ready. For New Year's Eve fun. Here we go. Woohoo! Woohoo! Okay, so I'm going to be inviting Sam and Kelly to write down some words, as I mentioned, and altogether there are 17. So I'll start off with name of a parent ed colleague.
00:02:11
Speaker
Game. a number between 2 and 22. Why that range? I have no idea. It just sounded good to me. Descriptive word.
00:02:24
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A type of activity that would be family friendly.
00:02:31
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Type of food. And another type of food.
00:02:37
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Beverage. Name of parent ed colleague.
00:02:44
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Something to see with. It might be a piece of equipment or... And the next one is a tool or a piece of equipment.
00:02:57
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You're anticipating something. You're getting ahead of me. ah name of a parented colleague. Action word.
00:03:07
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Color.
00:03:10
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Type of food.
00:03:14
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State of being or emotion word. And then last one is exclamation word. So let's just alternate. You'll take turns. So Kelly, you'll go first and then Sam. Are you ready? Ready. ready Okay, here we go.
00:03:31
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Time to get ready, shouted. Justin. It's almost time for the annual Parent Ed Team's Pictionary. We need six players to make it loudly before we, singing though we need to eat some cheese and comfort food. There will be hot chocolate to wash it down.
00:03:54
Speaker
I really hope Sam remembers to bring flashlight and book the hammer because Kelly is sure to skip the green broccoli and feel happy. Yippee!
00:04:10
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Said everyone. oh Let's go! ah That was fun. Just as a side note, Kelly, we both had hammer. That was our tool.
00:04:20
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of us i'll tell We also both had green and there's something else we have the same, but i won't tell you what tool I was going to write down and change my mind. that's what i was laughing at And it's like these other games like telephone, the more people you have, the more crazy or distorted it becomes. And yeah, it's kind of funny, isn't it? That was fun.
00:04:45
Speaker
who This was just making me remember that this was my dad's family's tradition. So they would, somebody would write a story that kind of summed up the year, the adventures the family had, the places they went, but they would leave all these blanks in it.
00:05:00
Speaker
And at the Christmas mealtime, people would go around and throw in these extra words and then they'd read it back both as a fun game, but also as the summary of the year that they just had together.
00:05:12
Speaker
ah it's fun. That's so fun. Yeah, I have ah a group of friends. We call ourselves, it's the sanity maintenance group. We would get together to help preserve our sanity. And at our Christmas get together, would bring forward the year in review. And so it was posed in question form. Who said what, where, or why? or So it was a little bit of a quiz for them, but i love it it was a lot of fun doing that as well, too.
00:05:40
Speaker
And that was a quick example of pulling it all together. There are words that are hilarious that don't fit and it ends up being um causing people to just split a gut because of how hilarious and ridiculous it is.
Shifting Resolutions to Intentions
00:05:54
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So this was about the underlying thing was maybe about writing um what some people call New Year's resolutions.
00:06:06
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What do you know about resolutions, Sam or Kelly? I know that i don't usually stick to them very long. Yeah, I don't think I've done New Year's resolutions in a long time because it just seems so strivey and prescriptive and solid. But I have been thinking a little bit about like what intentions, what things do I want to put in place as the New Year turns over?
00:06:34
Speaker
I agree. i find that as well, just that whole, like, it feels like you're getting graded on whether you've passed or failed if you create a resolution. But if you set your intentions, you're striving towards something that isn't necessarily like a yes or a no, or you did it, or you didn't do it, you can have progress without having to have perfection, I guess, is what the difference is for me and my little brain.
00:06:58
Speaker
Yeah, and I think many people have let go of the whole idea of New Year's resolutions just for all of those same reasons that you've you've identified. And as you mentioned, too, many people feel very unsuccessful quite soon in the new year, which can be problematic. If you're thinking about all this wonder for starting off a new year. So yeah, setting an intention or maybe an aspiration, that might be something that we might be focusing on. So thinking about your own personal life or maybe even working with children, spending time with children, your own children. How would you talk about this with them about looking into the new year? What's what's the big hype anyway?
00:07:40
Speaker
I think that talking to kids or talking to my family in general, sometimes after the Christmas chaos has kind of faded away, and especially after New Year's Day has happened or just as it's happening, there's a little bit of downtime, a little bit of quiet time before the next school year starts or the hubble bubble starts again. and for us, sometimes we've thought about What activities should we keep doing? What activities should we shift? What adjustments do we need to make so that our family functions well? Do we need a night off together? Could we move somebody's music lesson? Could we do something different?
00:08:20
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How about for you, Sam? We have talked a fair bit recently about trying to improve skill levels and whatever that looks like, whether it's being more skillful in how we're talking to each other or being more aware of the impact that we're having on each other in the house. um These have been topics that have been coming up a lot, which seems really apropos as we're coming into a new year to be able to think about how we want to be with each other and experiencing each other, if that makes sense.
Reflection and Renewal
00:08:51
Speaker
Mm hmm. Oftentimes we would have a fire. Well, not just on New Year's. We're very fire loving people. But New Year's especially. And what comes to mind for me when I think about it is it's almost like there's a little bit of reverence. There's this pause. Mm hmm. You know, if you've been celebrating already over the holidays, and you know, that doesn't always necessarily mean imbibing alcoholic beverages, it could just be lots of people together. So if you've had a lot of that, you know, maybe your sensory input has been quite high. And I found that New Year's Eve, because we never went out to parties, it was always more intimate gatherings with friends or family in that fire. And there was always a chance for people to share and
00:09:38
Speaker
For me, that was what it was about. It was about how do I want to move into this new year? So I like that pause. We talked earlier coming into September, how September is regarded as a new year, because there's a lot of beginnings, children starting school, whether it's just starting center-based childcare or going into an elementary school, moving on to college, university, or or starting a new job. There's just this essence of beginnings then. And now,
00:10:05
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We get that pause. We, you know, we've had sort of like the celebration and now we get to reflect on and come into the new year. And i really like that opportunity to see what's been happening and where I would like to
Parenting Transitions and Family Connections
00:10:19
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make change. And then.
00:10:21
Speaker
How would I like to do that? So I think that that's sort of multifaceted for me. It's noticing what was, what do I want to carry forward or what do I want to build on and how am I going to do that? Yeah. And the other piece, as you were saying, that comes up for me is what do I want to leave in this year?
00:10:40
Speaker
You know, sometimes I like to clean out. I like to clean up my desk. I like to clean out a closet. But I also like to sometimes write notes, whether I burn them in the fire or leave them. Just what do I want to leave here in this year and not deal with in the next year, not carry forward with me? What needs to be let go of?
00:10:58
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Mm-hmm. So we talked a little bit about, you know, the gathering. We had this Mad Libs game and we've also been talking about jokes. It might be jokes as in game playing, like sometimes with young children, playing hide and go seek is a lot of fun. I played with my grandson the other day and he hid, I had to close my eyes and count at 30. I think it was, he decided, and no kidding, he hid right in front of Yeah.
00:11:27
Speaker
He was in the lilac bush. And I thought, okay, avert your eyes right. Avert your eyes right. But so these are some of the things that you're faced with, with the developing sense of awareness of children, right? That he felt that he, he was hidden and he couldn't be seen. And he was...
00:11:45
Speaker
right front and center. But there's joke, then there are jokes. And at his age, I think about four, he started to get into joke telling and appreciating the humor of a joke. Now, sometimes the humor is his own interpretation of the humor, but he's getting it bit by bit. So we've gone through some different jokes.
00:12:06
Speaker
Are there jokes that are favorites that you've been telling? Well, I have to share my father-in-law's absolute favorite, and he passed away the beginning of COVID, was what's the difference between broccoli and snot?
00:12:21
Speaker
You can't get kids to eat broccoli. Okay. Oh, my gosh. Oh, that's such a good one. And my mother-in-law will be mortified that I repeated it because she hated it every time he told it. But he told it every time there was broccoli on the table.
00:12:40
Speaker
Oh, that's a good one. Are there any from your family, Sam? There are jokes constantly in my family. Some of them I cannot share on this podcast now because my children have much older senses of humor now than they used to. But there's this one joke that they both just thought was the funniest thing ever. And it was, where does the king keep his armies?
00:13:04
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In his sleevies. Yeah.
00:13:11
Speaker
I'm with your kids. That's my kind of crap. It's pretty great. And their grandmother was really good with puns and silly little jokes like that. So that was one that she shared with them. And she passed away a few years
Bounce Back and Thrive Program
00:13:25
Speaker
ago now. But yeah, that was one of hers. Oh, that's great.
00:13:30
Speaker
One that I really like, and because it goes with ah another little bit of a game, sort of, a weasel goes into a restaurant and the server said, hey, I've never served a weasel before. what would you like?
00:13:42
Speaker
goes the weasel.
00:13:48
Speaker
Oh my gosh. I think that they're just so funny. Okay. So we've offered a few games, a few activities that you could do and let's get back to wrap this up. ah So from on the ground, rising up for you, what has significance for this upcoming year?
00:14:06
Speaker
What's your intention? What's your aspiration? What's an affirmation maybe you want to make even? I think a new year for me, there's always new opportunities to learn and that's bubbling up. And I think there's two things about this podcast that I would offer. I'm curious for my own self to figure out what is it I want to learn? Where do I want to grow? How do i want to develop? Or what skills do I want to develop more? and and invite to our listeners, you know, as we're going into January, 2026, we're also going to be offering another round of bounce back and thrive. And maybe in your intentions, as you're thinking about your own parenting, maybe you want to come and hang out with us live as we teach bounce back and thrive this year. That would be so delightful to have some of our listeners come and join us for a program. That would be great. I think what's really springing up for me as we're entering into this new year is just appreciation for the fact that I'm entering into kind of another era of parenting now because my youngest is 15. So there's really, there's no kids in my house anymore, really. Like there's still, you know, he's still growing and he's not a full adult, but it just, it's a shift that I have really taken note of this year. He towers over me now. i am by far the shortest person in my house. And that's just the visual reminder of how things change as life goes on. so
00:15:35
Speaker
I think embracing this new era of where we are in our life. Well, for me, what's rising up would be a couple of words. And in the mindfulness group that groups that I'm involved in we often talk about choosing words to sort of be a landing place for us throughout the year. So we keep coming back to having that as an intention. And for me, I think of connection as being really important with every person
00:16:07
Speaker
And at the same time, i know that connection with some people is not always the easiest for me. And so compassion is the other aspect, that other word, the other practice, the other way of being that i want to focus on, bring into my way of being.
00:16:25
Speaker
So that's connection and compassion. So Kelly, you mentioned BBT, Bounce Back and Thrive. And ah how about offering a little bit of information about this parenting program?
00:16:36
Speaker
Sure. So Bounce Back and Thrive, I've had the pleasure of facilitating a couple of times It's six weeks where parents get to come together and talk about building their own capacity for resilience, their own pieces of of building their own strength um and abilities. And then an additional four weeks where we take all those things that we've learned and then we start to talk about how does that apply to dealing with two-year-old meltdowns? How does that apply to dealing with a 17-year-old who wants the car?
00:17:08
Speaker
How can we live that with the kids and the other people in our life? And i think listeners have heard me say this again and again, but I think the more skills we build with our own families as parents and as leaders, we get to then take into any other place that we exist in the world as employees, as managers, as leaders in the workplace. And I really think the more we build these skills, the happier we all are.
00:17:36
Speaker
Sam, do you want to add some more information to that? Sure. So the sessions are usually about one and a half to two hours long, and it's once a week. um All of our parent programs are free, which is why we do the things we do to try to generate donations and things like that, because we want to be able to continue to offer them for free. So it's a great program, and we can offer it well This particular one we're talking about will be offered online, but for those of you who are listeners in the Muskoka area, we also offer programs in person. So there are options available. And I just would love to reiterate what Kelly has said about the program and how useful it is. It really is.
Closing and Gratitude
00:18:16
Speaker
There's skills that you can use with your children, but they are absolutely skills that you're going to use with everyone in your life. And I want to add that I am noticing everywhere, whenever there is inquiry about my mental health, about my physical well-being, or how can I improve something, I will say that mindfulness and meditation, if it's not the number is not the one. It is at least number two or number three on the list. And Bounce Back and Thrive actually has many mindfulness practices embedded into it so that it is very complementary as far as giving you skills to help yourself and your children in many different ways.
00:18:56
Speaker
So that's it, everyone. It's been a joyful and wonderful year of 2025 for us launching this podcast on the ground parenting. And we wish you all the best. And we want to say, New Year!
00:19:14
Speaker
2026! Woo-hoo! Like the sparklers! Wear your best, spread your stuff. you in the new year.
00:19:34
Speaker
On the Ground Parenting is a production of Muskoka Family Focus's parent education program. It is made possible by the generous donations of listeners like you. If you'd like to make a donation, sponsor an episode, or just ask a question of one of our hosts, go to linktr.ee forward slash on the ground parenting.
00:19:52
Speaker
On the Ground Parenting is produced and published by Red Juice Studios. To learn more, go to redjuicestudio.com. Thanks for listening.