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iQuestions Faculty, Dr. Tim Kimmel 
 
 
Question: 
 
What is the biggest mistake parents make when raising their kids? 
 
Answer: 
 
When I watch well-meaning, well-intentioned, conscientious parents 
trying to raise their kids, there is one mistake I see them making over 
and over again, and that is, aiming their kids at a successful future. 
They want them to grow up to be a success. 
 
The problem with this has to do with how we quantify success. You 
see, we quantify success in material ways: wealth, beauty, power, and 
fame. We want our kids to make a lot of money, to have real 
handsome kids and turn heads. We want them to be somebody who 
can push their weight around and be well-known. 
 
There’s nothing wrong with these things, until they become embedded 
in our hearts as the things we most need to feel complete, because 
these are empty suits. They do not satisfy. They have a hunger that 
you can never quench. You have got to give them more than that. 
 
And that’s why I think the parents who figure this out, they step back 
and say, “You know, there is something far bigger in life than 
success—far more important,” and that’s what I like to call true 
greatness. You raise your kids to live for others, that you want kids to 
be others-oriented.  
 
Listen, my wife had a theory on when you should start teaching your 
kids this, and that was the second they start to breathe. That was the 
 
 
way it was in our home. She wanted our kids to be others-oriented 
from the beginning—always serving outwards. 
 
I grew up in a home like this. I grew up in Pennsylvania in my younger 
years, and Maryland in my teenage years, and we would get some big 
blizzards in. The night before, when I knew that the wind was howling 
and the snow was coming, I’d go to bed all excited, because when I 
would get up in the morning, I’d look out at that drifting snow and I 
knew two things: one, they’re going to cancel school; and two, I’m 
going to have a lot of money in my pocket by the end of the day, 
shoveling walks and driveways.  
 
My brother Tom and I would get our shovels and get a big breakfast, 
and we were going to go out to work, but my mother always handed 
us a little list of names with four or five names on it. It was always the 
same: “Now, go dig these people out, you cannot take a penny from 
them, and once you have got their sidewalks cleared and driveway, 
then you can go to the paying customers.”  
 
And these were elderly people, shut-ins, people on a pension. And 
that’s just the way it was. You didn’t question it, you just dig them 
out, and then you move on. 
 
When our kids, we would come to pick them up like in the nursery at 
church on Sunday morning, my wife would not let them leave there 
until they helped to put all the toys away, even if they didn’t play with 
them, hugged the teacher, and thanked them for the lesson, and then 
they could go. 
 
You’re at McDonald’s or a fast food place, and you’re eating, and when 
you’re done, you had to clean things up, and if somebody left a mess 
at the next table, you’d clean it up. 
 
I’d say, “But there’s a guy with a sponge . . .”  
 
 
 
“Forget it. Just clean it up.” 
 
It’s others-oriented. And when you raise kids for true greatness, you 
set them up for an adult life that is contagious. Everybody wants them 
to be part of their life.  
 
Now, when I say “true greatness,” there’s something that I have in my 
mind that helps quantify that, and that’s four qualities that you embed 
deep down in your heart, and that is humility, gratefulness, 
generosity, and a servant’s heart. 
 
You want to raise kids who are not about themselves. They are 
humble. They care about others more than they care about 
themselves. And they are grateful for what they have. They aren’t 
whining, they are not always wanting more. They are grateful, they 
are generous. They hold what they have in open hands, and then 
when it comes to their abilities, it’s always to help make other peoples’ 
lives better. You serve others.  
 
And you don’t have to wait until they are teenagers. You start now, 
and what’s great is there are all kinds of ways they can do it right 
there inside the home. 
 
 
 
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