HOW IS SELF-CONTROL A PREDICTOR OF A CHILD'S HEALTH FUTURE?

What if your child's behavior, specifically their level of self-control, could be used as an indicator of your child's health future, emotional well-being, and overall success as an adult?

Over the course of the past several decades, a team of doctors and researchers in New Zealand have discovered just such a correlation.

The Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, also known as The Dunedin Study, was started in New Zealand by Dr. Phil A. Silva at the Dunedin School of Medicine, the University of Otago in 1972. Over the course of the past 50 years, it has followed the lives of 1,037 people (every baby born at a specific hospital in 1972), spawned a number of substudies, and produced more than 1,300 publications and reports.

The longitudinal study has found that a child's self-control, even more so than a high IQ, is one of the biggest indicators of a successful and healthy life outcome.