Study Says Kids Who Don’t Conform Easily Are More Likely To Be Successful

If you’re a parent, you’ve probably had some moments when you just truly didn’t know if you could keep going. You were ready to throw your hands up and say, “Screw it! The kid can do whatever she wants!” Kids are stubborn. Sometimes, they just won’t stop climbing into the toilet, and sometimes, they’d rather sulk at the dinner table like a brat than just eat one more bite of peas.

Don’t worry, Mom and Dad, there’s good news. Next time you’re wondering whether you can make it through one more day, consider this: A new study shows that stubborn kids tend to turn into successful kids.

Guess who earned the highest salaries?

How the research was done

This study followed over 700 kids from the time that they were as young as 8, to well into their 40s. This research is possibly the most expansive that exists on the subject. The study seeks to explain the relationship between attitudes and behaviors of students in late childhood and their success as an adult. The participants were studied, and the research determined personality traits in the kids such as pessimism, defiance, and stubbornness.

The surprising results

At the end of the study, guess who earned the highest salaries? The adults who were stubborn and resistant as kids. The adults who, as kids, just wouldn’t play by the rules or do as they were told. So, if getting your kid to put their shoes on to leave the house is the world’s hardest chore, don’t worry. They’re going to be able to repay you one day with big paychecks.

Explanation for such results

The writers at Time reported on this story, and offered their insight – and it makes sense. Kids who aren’t willing to settle for something they don’t want aren’t going to grow into adults that will settle for less prestigious jobs. In the classroom, these kids are more competitive. During salary negotiations and job interviews, they’ll be more likely to fight for their financial interests. In a nutshell, a kid with a strong will is likely to become an adult with a strong will.

So, how do you know if your kid is strong willed? According to the Time article, “Strong-willed kids have strong gut reactions that they’ll battle for even when it’s illogical, say professional therapists. They go after what they want at any cost.”

Some therapists claim that strong-willed kids are less likely to succumb to peer pressure, and if they are steered in the right direction, they can be among the biggest achievers of their generation. As parents, if you can keep your kid motivated, they will end up being motivated leaders of their community.

What This Means For Your Kid

The research is quite conclusive. Even if it’s unable to explain the correlation between stubbornness and success, does the why really matter, though? As long as you know that your kid is strong-willed, you know that you’re in a good position to raise a winner.

Also, it doesn’t take into account the career paths, life decisions, or other mid-life choices these kids made. It is simply examining a starting point and an ending point. It’s possible that all the stubborn kids became career criminals because of their defiance of authority. It is possible that these kids were more willing to advance their career at the expense of their coworkers, but there is no evidence to support this. The point is, we only know one thing for sure: personality traits are a much better predictor of a child’s future financial success than IQ or intelligence.

So maybe the next time you’re having an epic battle over refusing to clean their rooms, take a moment to be thankful for their strong will.

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Source: Lifehack.org