A recently released 20 year study connects the effects of childhood behavior to later success in life.

The American Journal of Public Health has just printed a new article that determines whether or not early life can affect adult life. They held a strenuous 20 year project, focusing on the lives on 800 kindergarten students up until they reached their mid-twenties.

In the beginning they had the teachers fill out weekly evaluation chart per student that judges the child’s actions based on how well they socialize with others, follow the rules, pay attention in class and overall how well they behave; not based on academic success. The charts reached through numbers 0-4, 0 being extremely poor behavior while 4 being at their best.

When compared to adulthood, those with higher numbers were twice as likely to get into college on a degree, and even 46% more likely to have a full time job by the time they were 25. Meanwhile those with lower numbers showed the opposite, as they were 67% more likely to have a criminal record and held a 52% higher rate of substance abuse, as well as difficulty finding quality housing.

“It’s like a paradigm shift around what it means to be mentally well at an early age and how that dictates how life goes for you later on,” said Kristin Schubert, the program director at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, that happened to fund the project. The researchers expressed their surprise at the results, they expected the connection to be obvious but they did not expect it to be so incredibly strong. “We were surprised but not completely surprised.” said Damon Jones, the lead researcher.

It just goes to show how important social and emotional connection is, even at such a young age and how it can end up changing lives.