We all want the best for our children, right? This is why we work hard and make sacrifices - so we can give them the best of everything.
Some parents enroll their kids in all sorts of extra-curricular activities. There are dance lessons, piano lessons, elocution, cooking, different sports, you name it. Anything to give our children an edge they can use when they grow up.
But will all these lessons and coaching guarantee that they'll be successful as grown-ups? Not really. This is not a guarantee at all.
A study reveals that one of the things that many parents take for granted is actually a very important factor that could help children develop better habits that will enable them to be successful. What is this? Reading.
According to a study by economists from the University of Padova in Italy, encouraging children to read can increase a child's lifetime earning advantage by as much as 21 percent. The research considered the individual cases of 5,820 European men to determine whether or not an extra year of learning increased their learning potential. Results say that it did. As boys, the men who attended school for an additional year earned nine percent more compared to those who didn't.
And where did the reading come in? It turns out that those kids who spent an extra year in school had more than 10 non-school books at home. This means that they grew up surrounded by books, and had parents or siblings who read. The men who had more than 10 non-school books (fiction, poetry, art, books about hobbies, comics, for instance) were able to increase their edge when it came to earning advantage by 21 percent.
The study was published online in April in The Economic Journal.
In the meantime, the economic status of the men who took part in the research were not discussed in detail, but it was implied that it did not matter much if the parents of the men were white-collar or blue collar when it came to their jobs. What was significant was that the men grew up reading and owned at least 10 books.
A separate study by Thomas Corley points out that reading and success was "a simple matter of cause and effect."
In his five-year research on the daily habits of rich and poor people, it was revealed that a key driver for the wealthy and their reading habits was their willingness to learn more.
Some of his other findings:
86% of the wealthy loved reading vs. 26% for the poor.
63% of the wealthy listened to audio books during their commute to work vs. 5% for the poor.
85% of the wealthy read two or more self-improvement books every month vs. 15% for the poor.
The books wealthy people read disproportionately included non-fiction books. These included books on science, history, self-help, career-improvement books, as well as instructional materials.
88% of the wealthy read 30 minutes or more each day vs. 2% for the poor.
94% of the wealthy, on a daily basis, read newspapers, newsletters, magazines, blogs and other digital media vs. 11% of the poor.
Not all of us can afford getting pianos for our children or have them taught by fencing masters, but we can all buy them books. Thank goodness that there are many second-hand bookstores, and buying our kids' books can at least level the playing field when it comes to their chances to one day become successful.
