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iQuestions Faculty, Dr. Tim Kimmel 
 
 
Question: 
 
How do I raise my kids to be selfless? 
 
Answer: 
 
Raising kids who grow up to make a difference is not going to be done 
by accident. You have got to be deliberate about this. 
 
I applaud you for wanting to see kids that have more going for them 
than what’s in it for them. But the fact is that we live in a culture that 
worships the individual, worships self, worships all the stuff that we 
can have, and we celebrate the people that glitter and shine in the 
media.  
 
But the fact is that the stuff of the heart, the deeper stuff of the heart, 
is what you want to build into your kids. 
 
My wife and I, as we observed life and observed others, we found out 
that there are some things you have got to put down in the core of 
your kids’ hearts—I mean, the stuff that they are not going to 
negotiate on. We call them convictions. You have got to build 
convictions into your kids’ hearts. 
 
Let me define a conviction. I define a conviction as what you are 
willing to die for.  
 
Now, if that is how we are defining conviction, I don’t think people 
today have a lot of convictions. See, life is precious. You don’t just 
give it up for anything. But the problem with the average person today 
 
 
is not that their list of convictions is too long, it’s that there is nothing 
on their list. 
 
You see, until your kids have something worth dying for, they really 
don’t have anything worth living for. 
 
Now, let me just suggest four things that I think are worth dying for. 
You can make your own list, but as we tried to embed these into our 
kids by the way we lived our life and showed them how we lived our 
life, I think it just gave them far more excitement about taking on 
each day. 
 
I think our friends are worth dying for. I think our family is worth 
dying for. I think our faith is worth dying for. And I think our freedom 
is worth dying for. 
 
I mean, when it comes to freedom, if you know anything about the 
history of the United States, the cost of freedom has been high. There 
are people always out there on the front lines, ready to lay everything 
on the line for us. 
 
And you see, when you build some core convictions into your kids, that 
they say, “I believe these are so important, I would be willing to give 
my life for them,” well, now you are setting up a kid to be far more 
altruistic.  
 
Here’s the good news: most likely, your kids will never have to die for 
their friends, for their family, for their faith, or their freedom. But 
there is something that you can demonstrate for them as you go 
through your life as a parent, that can show them that if it ever came 
down to it, you wouldn’t hesitate to give your life for those four things, 
and that is: are you willing to live for them? Are you willing to live for 
your friends, and your family, and your faith, and your freedom?  
 
 
 
Are you willing to inconvenience your own life to pay a great price in 
your day-to-day life to invest in these very four things? 
Then your kids will know that this is a conviction, a core conviction of 
your heart. It will take the focus off themselves. They won’t be 
spending so much time with a mirror in front of them. They will be 
looking outwards, and they will be living a life that makes a real 
difference. 
 
 
 
 
 
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