Tim Kimmel - Raising Kids for True Greatness: Redefine Success for You and Your Child

Praise for Raising Kids for True Greatness

Raising Kids for True Greatness is an important message for our times. It is clear, compelling, and full of common sense. Its not only loaded with practical, usable information, but is a guide you will read and reread. Both your mind and your heart will tell you this book is true.

Dr. Gary Smalley

Author, The DNA of Relationships

How much energy do we spend trying to raise our children to be great in the eyes of the world rather than in the eyes of our God? Dr. Kimmels book cuts to the core of what parents need to understand in order to raise kids for true greatness.

Pastor Jim Cymbala, The Brooklyn Tabernacle

All parents want their children to be successful, but many have a very vague idea of what that means. Dr.Tim Kimmel clears the air and helps parents not only identify true success, but gives helpful guidelines on how to raise children who will accomplish their potential for God in the world.

Gary D. Chapman, PhD

Author, The Five Love Languages and The Four Seasons of Marriage

What does true greatness look like for a Christian? Author Tim Kimmel helps us weed out the common worldly view of greatness and teaches us to plant seeds of lasting value into the lives of our children. Raising Kids for TrueGreatness leads each of us as parents down the right road of making a positive and significant impact on the next generation.

Karol Ladd

Author, The Power of a Positive Mom and

A Positive Plan for Creating More Calm, Less Stress

The wise parent will use Tim Kimmels exceptional book, first, to learn what true greatness is. Learning to understand true greatness will take some effort and may require some change in perspective on genuine life valuesbut it will lead you to maturity. Once the parent grasps the meaning of true greatness they will find guidance in passing these priceless virtues on to their child. In this new, negative culture in which we find ourselves, we parents must know and understand the principles of this book. Only then will we enable our children to not only succeed, but to lead godly lives.

Ross Campbell, MD

Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Child Psychiatry, University of Tennessee

Author, How to Really Love Your Child and How to Really Parent Your Child

RAISING KIDS FOR TRUE GREATNESS

2006 Tim Kimmel

All rights reserved.No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotation in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published by W Publishing Group, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, TN 37214.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Other Scripture quotations are taken from the following: New King James Version (NKJV). Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The New Century Version (NCV). Copyright 1987, 1988, 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Cover Design: gearbox

Interior Design: Stacy Clark

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kimmel, Tim.

Raising kids for true greatness : redefine success for you and your child / Tim

Kimmel.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN-10: 0-8499-0951-1

ISBN-13: 978-0-8499-0951-1

1. ParentingReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. Child rearingReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.

BV4529.K552 2006

248.8'45dc22

2005034990

Printed in the United States of America

06 07 08 09 10 RRD 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

CONTENTS

To Steve and Barbara Uhlmann

If you want to see what true greatness looks
like, just follow these two people around.

This was not an easy book to capture. The fact is that if youre writing about something as important and extraordinary as true greatness, it shouldnt be easy. But there were some key people who slipped in through the seams of my life at the right time to help me move this message from the abstract to the concrete, from the complex to the simple. Im in debt to people like...

... Steve and Cheryl Green, the A-team of author development, fellow pilgrims, and loyal friends.

... the staff of W publishing Group, with standouts like David Moberg and Debbie Wickwire. From conception to delivery, you are the kind of people an author wants surrounding him as he turns big ideas into something that everyone can make their own.

... editor Jennifer Stair. Ive never known anyone who can nip and tuck words as well as you.

... the staff and board of directors of Family Matters. Its easy to focus on the challenge before me when such capable people have my back.

... and Steve and Barbara Uhlmann. Without the keys to your hideaway in the mountains, this book would still be floating around in my head.

What made this message on true greatness make the most sense to me are the people who surround me each day and model what greatness looks like lived out at street level. Like Darcy. You put the soul in soul mate, and you are the heart behind this message. Mike, Karis, Cody, Shiloh, and Colt: youve made it fun to prove that true greatness actually works before I captured it in words. And two fabulous granddaughters, Riley and Lydia... youre next.

WHY SUCCESS ISNT ENOUGH

He was the most spectacular sprinter in America. Dubbed the fastest man alive, Bobby Hayes became a global celebrity at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, winning the gold medal for the 100 meters and running the 400-relay anchor leg in an astonishing 8.6 seconds. Nobody before or since has run that fast. As one sportswriter put it, Its barely human to run that fast.... Thats a blur.

The next year, Hayes took his world-class speed to the Dallas Cowboys, gained more than 1,000 yards that season, and led the NFL in yards per catch as well as touchdowns scored. He was so fast that opposing teams had to play a zone defense against him, because no one man could cover him when he went out for a pass.

Throughout the early 1970s, Bobby The Bullet Hayes ruled the world of football. And to this day, he is still the only athlete to have both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. At the height of his game, Hayes was getting positive ink in the sports sections of newspapers all over the country. His action shots were part of the backdrop in many sports bars, and his poster adorned thousands of kids bedroom walls.

Everyone, it seemed, knew the name of the fastest man alive. And fathers all across America encouraged their sons that if they worked hard enough, they, too, could grow up to be like the great Bobby Hayes.

Aiming Higher

What is your goal when it comes to raising your children? If youre like most parents, the word success is somewhere in your answer. We all want the very best for our children. We want them to get a good education, have prestigious jobs, live in safe neighborhoods, marry spouses who are easy to look at, and someday have wonderful children of their own. And who is kidding whom? Deep down, we wouldnt mind it a bit if our children someday became as legendary and successful in their chosen professions as Bobby Hayes became in his, right?

To be fair, there is a sense of success that is a legitimate parenting goal, if were defining