In "The Four Agreements", there is a quote which reads "In human domestication, the information from the outside dream is conveyed to the inside dream, creating our whole belief system... Day by day, at home, at school, at church, and from television, we are told how to live, what kind of behavior is acceptable... Children are domesticated in the same way that we domesticate a dog, a cat, or any other animal. In order to train a dog we punish it, we give it rewards... We are told, 'you're a good boy,' 'you're a good girl' when we do what Mom and Dad want us to do. When we don't, we are a 'bad girl' or a 'bad boy'." What process is this quote referring to?

In his book "The Four Agreements", Don Miguel Ruiz advocates personal freedom from beliefs and agreements that we have made with ourselves and others that are creating limitation and unhappiness in our lives. In this passage, the author, demonstrates how at the very young age verything that surrounds a child, his or her parents, television education, religion enforces the norm of conduct. This type of conditioning is no different than the one used on animals. We create a sort of Pavlov's unconditioned stimulus in children and they carry this on into adulthood and repeat the process.