Why have families at The NVC & Diversity Retreat?

Join me at the Diversity Retreat

- Cathy Bucher,
The Diversity Retreat youth program coordinator

“If we could but recognize our common humanity, that we do belong together, that our destinies are bound up in one another’s, that we can be free only together, that we can survive only together, that we can be human only together, then a glorious world would come into being where all of us lived harmoniously together as members of one family, the human family.” – Desmond Tutu

The world is a place made up of different colors, different cultures and different ways of being and thinking. There is great beauty in this diversity. Even at times when we do not experience it, we have a choice about how to connect with those that appear to be different from us and are expressing their desires in ways that seem to threaten the life in us. Nonviolent Communication (NVC) offers us the tools for accessing choice through the practice of seeing the universal needs that connect us all in our humanity.

Our children too can benefit from our choosing to embrace our differences with others through connection to what all humans value most. They look to us to see whether we, the adults in their lives, will respond with fear or with love. How do we greet the homeless person on the street, the person on talk radio espousing political views different from ours, or the person who looks so completely different from us? How do we respond to our partners when they act in ways that are different from how we would? How do we meet our children when they choose to show up in ways that we fear? It is in these moments and how we respond to them that our children learn from us. They learn by how we live, not just by what we speak. We, parents, can change the world through the very simple act of seeing ourselves in everyone we meet, especially in those that appear to be most different from us.

At the NVC and Diversity Retreat, we hope to support families in cultivating a family culture that embraces diversity. We hope to come together as a community to offer a tapestry of richness and variety so that our children can see us embracing our differences. I believe that the more diverse models of humanity we have in our lives, the more we will develop love, compassion and an appreciation for the richness of life in all the ways it shows itself to us. And in opening ourselves to love for others, we can experience more love for ourselves.

I invite you to join me with your children at the NVC and Diversity Retreat where we can celebrate our human family together.

Diversity awareness enriches youth and families.

- Roxy Manning,
The Diversity Retreat adult program trainer

“The parent-child relationship is the foundation from which we learn how to interact in the world. The paradigm of control and domination by those who had power was our primary experience.” – Teresa Graham Brett

If you review the topics covered for BayNVC's Leadership Program, you will find that the topic of parenting is placed under the heading of social change. The way we parent our children has a direct influence on the person they grow up to be and how they interact with the people and systems in our world.

Why would I want my family to attend an NVC retreat?
How we raise our kids has a direct impact on the kinds of adults they grow up to be, and the kind of society they will build. If we want to move towards a world where everyone's needs matters, then we need to raise kids who are secure in their belief that their needs matter. At the NVC and Diversity retreat, children spend time with adults who trust in children’s capacity to know what understanding and awareness of their needs and the needs of those around them. Children are supported in finding full self-expression while still holding respect and care for the experiences of others. Many families report that having adults around them who share these core values is a phenomenal experience of community and companionship for them, an affirmation that these values, sometimes not found in our families of origin or local communities, are indeed held and treasured by others.

Why would I want my children to attend the NVC and Diversity retreat?
If we want to move towards a world where people can see the shared humanity underneath a myriad of cultural and social differences, then we need to give kids opportunities to meet and interact with others from diverse cultures. At the Diversity Retreat, children and their families have the opportunity to meet each other and truly get that while external differences in access to money, skin color, and life experiences exist, we each share the same fundamental human needs. Children experience the wonder of learning about each other, making friends, and celebrating their diverse experiences. As age appropriate and desired by the child, children can also have space to express confusion and mourning about messages they may have received about themselves or others in relation to race, ethnicity, class or other aspects of their identity.

Why would I want to attend the NVC and Diversity retreat?
Parents also get a huge benefit from attending a diversity retreat. First, as our awareness of and healing from our experiences with race, class and ethnicity grows, we have more compassion for ourselves and others. We are able to live in alignment with our values, and better able to care for our own needs and the needs of others in the world. If we believe that children learn what they see, then in making a shift in how we react to power dynamics in our world, we model for our children how they can live in their world. Next, parents often find that, as they explore their own experiences, they also make connections with how issues of power and dominance manifest in their parenting, in their interactions with the young people in their care who have less structural power because of age than do the parents. Indeed, lessons learned about power and dominance in one arena can be applied to the other.