EQ ~ eMotional iNtelligence

The other day, I was going through some material on "Emotional Intelligence" and I came across some pretty interesting stuff.

It talks about a scientific experiment called "The Marshmellow test" that was done on 4-year old kids.
A marshmellow was placed in front of them and they were told that if they can wait for 15 minutes and not take this marshmellow, they will get two instead of one. So what did the kids do ? Well, some simply couldn't resist the temptation and took the marshmellow. Some kids, however managed to wait the full 15 minutes. These kids would close their eyes, sing a song or do something or the other to keep their mind of that marshmellow in front of them. And at the end of 15 minutes they were awarded with the promised two marshmellows. And the story does not end here. One would assume "So what? They are little kids and when they become bigger they will do better..." To really find out, these kids were observed for say, the next twenty years and their progress in life tracked.And to everyone's surprise it was noticed that the adults who resisted the marshmellow when they were small kids fared much better in their lives than those that couldn't resist the temptation.
And for the very same reason. The former were able to resist temptation and handle certain situations better in their adult life.This really surprised me. I never thought that such traits should be learned from such a young age and that if you don't change your kid's attitude or behaviour towards certain situations, it will never change... something to keep in mind.