Kids That Learn This Lesson Earn More Money as Adults

Raising kids is tough.  You want to teach them the right lessons, avoid setting bad examples, and getting some occasional peace and quiet for yourself.  Of course, getting a 100% on that report card is impossible - but we're trying our best.  The key seems to be prioritizing the best lessons for our young ones, like putting things like "be responsible," above things like "make sure you have matching socks."

Thankfully, a 30-year study done by a large network of universities and public institutions is giving us some insight to improving our kids financial futures.  The results of this eye-opening study are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).  According to the intense research cultivated by observing 2,850 kindergartners grow into adults in their mid 30's, the difference between earning a low salary and a mid to high salary comes down to one word - attention.  

The difference in salary between kids who paid attention in kindergarten and those that didn't was as high as $77,000 per year.  According to the results, this inattention manifests as specific behaviors like:

"opposition (e.g., disobeying, blaming others), hyperactive (e.g., fidgety, constantly moving), anxiety (e.g. crying easily, constantly worried) and physical aggression (e.g., fighting, bullying).

The study did adjust for IQ and "family adversity." It also found that for boys, "aggression-opposition" was linked with lower annual earnings as well as a strong link between being more socially active and higher annual earnings.

These new finding will give parents and teachers better tools to identify inattentive kids in order to support them and modify their behaviors for a healthier financial future.