Conscious Choice: Teach Your Children Well

June 2008 | Conversations

Teach Your Children Well

Don Miguel Ruiz on how the world is a playground and parenting is a work of art

Interview by Jessica Kraft

In the native Toltec tradition of rural Mexico, the shamanic healer, or nagual, guides individuals on their path to personal freedom with simple, practical teachings. Trained by his mother and grandfather in this practice of transformation, Don Miguel Ruiz has combined new insights with old wisdom in his best-selling books, The Four Agreements, The Mastery of Love and The Voice of Knowledge. His two sons were also inspired to continue the family legacy, and Don Miguel regularly teaches and leads tours to the Toltec spiritual home of Teotihuacan with his son, Jose Luis. We asked him to reflect on his transformational teachings and how they apply to parenting.

You’ve helped millions of readers start a quest to find their deeper selves. But what do you say to those of us who’ve made personal commitments like the Four Agreements but still find ourselves suffering and worrying?

I don’t worry at all. For me, this world is a playground. We are here to enjoy and to share. I really believe we all are messengers, we create our own belief system and we share that with the people we love the most: our partner, our children, our friends, our relatives, our parents. We can be so excited if we know, if we have awareness. Most people don’t have awareness. For centuries, humanity has been going in the right direction — our society is getting better and better. Of course there is war and violence and injustice. But there is not a reason to worry, really. Problems always come. The best way is to face every problem with the knowledge that the problem will be resolved in one way or another, and you can keep on enjoying life. We are not here to suffer. For a long time we have learned from teachers and religious leaders that we are here to suffer. But it’s not true. If we face the problem, we become responsible for our own decisions and life becomes so easy and enjoyable.

How does this awareness apply to parenting?

Our children believe everything. They are so innocent. We just download ourselves into them and they repeat everything. They see what parents do and what their brothers and sisters do, they watch tv. All of that goes into their beautiful minds. And as soon as they grow up, they have all those opinions and they become like a distorted copy of ourselves. If we want to change the relationship with our children, we need to start with ourselves. When parents change their own lives, they break the chain that comes from their parents and grandparents, and their new behavior will be learned by the children. I prefer to work with parents because they can then teach their children.

The first of your Four Agreements is to “be impeccable with your word.” What does that mean for parents?

To be impeccable with the word means to live in the present moment, to work to create the most beautiful story about you and everything around you — as a piece of art. Impeccability means without sin, and sin is everything we do against ourselves and against everything that exists. If we are impeccable with our word, that is what our children will learn from us. Then, as in the second agreement, “don’t take anything personally,” if we don’t take anything personally, they will learn not to take anything personally. If, like the third agreement, we don’t make assumptions, they will learn not to make assumptions — and if we always try our best, they will learn that too. The four agreements fit perfectly into parenting, but parenting is not about “do what I say!” It’s about “do what I do.” It’s by example. If you tell your children, “Please, never lie,” and then someone rings the door and you say to your children, “Go tell them I’m not here” — well, that’s a mixed message.

Of course they will grow up and have their crises. When they are adolescents, they have a little rebellion because they suddenly perceive the double standards of society and they don’t know exactly how to put it into words, and it troubles them. They have role models like musicians, artists and actors — these false heroes they want to imitate. They have their own contradictions too, like when they don’t want their parents to tell them what to do, but they also don’t want to be responsible. The crisis is totally normal. But at a certain point they find awareness and they go to forgiveness.

How did you cultivate awareness in your own children?

Well, at the present time, it is excellent with my two children. They are both really happy and enjoying life. But each one of them, they went into rebellion at the age of adolescence. I just respected their point of view, I never pushed them to believe a certain way, I just let them know they are responsible and there are consequences for whatever they do. They have the right to live the way they want to live their lives. But I had to think, if I don’t love them, who else could love them? Until they finally find out they can love themselves unconditionally. You know what I told them during their rebellions? That life is really very simple. That either you are happy or you are stupid. That means if you are stupid, you cannot be happy. You find happiness through the choices you make. And it’s that simple.

The biggest lie humans believe now is that nobody is perfect. The truth is that only perfection exists — it’s the way it is. Imperfection only exists in the human mind, and the idea of imperfection destroys our capacity to love and appreciate. Imperfection doesn’t exist for dogs and cats and trees — it is only a way of thinking. We believe we are not perfect, and that’s stupid. The truth is that we all are perfect. Six years ago I had a massive heart attack and was in a coma for a while, but this doesn’t mean that I am imperfect — my heart is now working at the maximum capacity that it can work. Do I have to judge myself because it is not working “perfectly”? Do I have to blame someone because this happened with my physical body? Of course not! It is just the way it is. And I love my children just the way they are — they are perfect.

You’ve written about how children are purely authentic beings. What can parents learn from children?

We hardly learn anything from our children. We learn from ourselves! Even if we project that we learned it from them — we didn’t. It’s like when people say, “Look what I learned from my pet.” No! The cat is just a cat, the dog is just a dog. We are the ones teaching ourselves by studying them. We get our parenting experience through them. The truth is that we teach ourselves. They don’t teach us anything.

Usually parenting is not a one-person job. How do you work together with the other parent?

Two parents are ideal, but that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes one parent wants to be responsible, sometimes both do. But if we have awareness, if we know what we are doing, if both of us have agreements, we guide the children in the best way possible. Each one of the parents goes and changes their own world. The mother uses all the power of the feminine ways and the father uses all the power of the masculine ways. There is nothing rigid — it’s an art, it’s creation.

How can we create a better world for our children?

If you don’t like your world, please change it. The way to change it is to love yourself much more, to enjoy your life much more, to be happy and to share your happiness with the people you love the most. I don’t mean about the planet, I mean really about your world. You are the one who can do it, so please, help me to change the world.

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