Stubborn children ‘will have higher salaries and be more successful’ as adults

Your little bundle of trouble might just turn into a billionaire.

There was always that one child in school who refused to do what they were told. They were rude to teachers, got away with murder at home and although they made your blood boil, you kind of wished you had the same luxury that they did. It was either their way or no way and it turns out that those stubborn, spoilt brats will always win. A new study completed by developmental psychologists has found that kids who constantly break the rules and defy their parents often go on to become high-earners as adults and perform extremely well academically. The study, published in the US National Library of Medicine, followed students from their late primary years into adulthood. The children were aged between 8 and 12-years-old when their personality traits - such as academic conscientiousness, entitlement and defiance - were evaluated. Researchers took their precious time in finding out the results of their study. Four decades later they checked back in with their students to see how they turned out. They found that the students who broke the most rules turned out to be the best non-cognitive predictor of high income as an adult. There is a strong correlation between rule-breaking youngsters and high income in mid-life, and the authors of the study believe that this could be down to the fact that stubborn children might be more competitive in the classroom, leading to better grades. Furthermore, in adulthood, the authors suggested that these children would be more demanding and would be able to get better salaries for themselves when negotiating contracts. In the study, 745 people were tracked up until the age of 52.