What's the point of children?

[Menno24]

I've been playing the sims for a while and i wanted to create a new family. I wanted my main sim to start as a toddler. But i always hate it to wait until he grows up before i can do cool stuff with him. I know i can make the life cicles shorter in the options menu but isn't there something my toddler/child/teenager can do wich he may benefit from later in his life? In the sims 2 they could atleast go to the university and earn some money for later. in the sims 3 i just have to wait until he finally becomes an adult. :|

i have all the expansions up to generations.
Isn't there anyting special only toddlers/childs/teenagers can do wich benefits their future?

[whiterider]

This is most definitely not a Challenge. Moved to TS3 discussion. :)

[matrix54]

Children can be bakers.
Adults cannot.

[Nottie]

They can gain skills early, while teenagers can get part time jobs.
Kids can also bake and sell which is pretty cool since you can sort of manage it. It's pretty basic but meh.

The new generations expansion also adds some pretty cool things.

[kewpie]

As Nottie said, they can gain skills early with toys and books. You can have a toddler get +4 in logic, using both a toy and a book. They can get +3 in music with a toy and +3 in writing and painting with books. Those are nice boosts to start with when they get old enough to actually use the skill. Kids can get +3 to cooking with the toy oven and +3 to handiness with the block table. These two skills are great to get early because it will almost guarantee that they won't hurt themselves by fire or electrocution once they start doing basic repairs and cooking. Kids can also get "real" skills like logic, writing, painting, fishing and perhaps a few others I'm not thinking of. With Awesome mod, you can start a game with a child and I've had them earn lots of money with fishing and/or painting as children.

Bake sale - I can't do diddly with it. Maybe my towns are too empty or I don't understand how to price anything. My sims have almost never sold anything on it.

Also, while children are aging they will gain aspiration points. If you give a toddler a teddy bear and change their diaper every 5 hours, and maybe play some music if you are really into it, they will gain tons of points. Children are very easy to keep happy and will also gain points. If you do it right, your kids will have at least 5 - 8 k points before they are even teens.

Even a baby can gain aspirational points in the right set of circumstances. If you are on a "beautiful vista" lot, and you change your babies diaper frequently and play music, you can get a baby to gain points. If a child is evil, they will get perks whenever they cry or poop their diaper and annoy their parents. I think if you were to have a shy person in with an evil baby, they'd get a mood boost from the "feeling shy" moodlet the adult sim would have. The baby gets a big boost and the adult with the shy trait only gets -5 (which is nothing, really) so it's a very good tradeoff. WIth some work, I've gotten a baby to get 2k or so points before aging up to toddler.

I think the only thing that really aggravates me about childhood is that they can't use the collection helper. And this makes NO sense to me. They want to go out collecting more than any other age group, but they can't use it. It's a pain to switch back and forth between the adult and child.

[bluetexasbonnie]

They can write books and have a nice income stream by the time they are adults. Give them a lap top and take them with you on an adventure. They can spend most of their time writing and/or fishing -- building skills and earning money without the time drain of school. France and China are easier destinations to do this. In Egypt they have to go to the cafe in order to have a surface they can use their laptop on.

[lisfyre]

Well... the whole point of the game is life simulation. So therefore ... adults get together, procreate and populate. That's the general theme of the game after all.

To answer the question - in my Play game, I cheat a lot. I age babies about 1 day after the family and friends have taken a look at the little munchkin, taken pics and played. Once at toddler, I make sure their needs are maxed so that they learn everything. I mean everything. This also means that everyone's needs are maxed. Use TCE and make needs Static. Parents sit and teach the toddler walking, talking and potty training all in one go. Then toddlers go learn from their toys and from books for toddlers scattered in the nursery. Once that's all done and all learned... after a few days of cutesy toddler stuff with the parents/siblings, they age to children.

Still with all needs maxed, kids learn painting, baking, writing ... easy way to make more money for the family. At this point, I can keep them as kids or age them as teens, depends on this SIm Goddess mood. From here on in, you can take off TCE and cheats and let them live their lives as you will.

I rush the baby/toddler stage only because at this point, they don't really do anything.. at least in my game. I make sure you get all the pics of what you want with their parents/sibs and all the cute moments before you age them up. I can take time with child stage... make sure they're grades are all A's, do everything they want to do as a child, make all their friends, do the after school stuff, then send them off to "boarding school" to get them out of my hair. Then they can age to teens.

I'm an overachiever so my child and teen cycles along with FA, Adult are the max and I do play with Epic lifespan so they get to do EVERYTHING. I'm such a ruthless Sim Goddess but I love it!!

[jenieusa]

i have pets....some of my kids i have given the LTW...for catching 20 small animals....those kids complete their
Lifetime wish before their teenagers....

[PunkyBreester]

Continuation of the species.

As far as your real question..
You can have toddlers work on their skills with the toys, and/or build a relationship with the Imaginary Friend (for later use, muahaha).
Kids can gain some skills, like painting or writing, which you can sell for $. You can set them to focus on learning specific skills in school. AFAIK they can also pick up and sell any collectibles (rocks, insects, small animals..?). You could also "breed" pets and sell the offspring.
Teens are almost as useful as adults, in my opinion. They can still focus on certain skills in school, as well as attend after school programs specific to other sets of skills. Additionally they can get a part-time job from somewhere around town. They can do MOST things that adults can, as far as I know, in the ways of collecting, gardening, performing w/ instruments, breeding pets, etc. that will bring in extra skill gain and $$. Oh yes, and that IF that you built a relationship with? If you turn him/her real, you've got another slave source of income!

And during all life stages, you can work to satisfy wants and towards the lifetime want, to get points and buy rewards that could help you out.

[zigersimmer]

I'm pretty sure the sole purpose of children is to kick the back of my seat on the airplane and make a general fuss so that I beg the stewardess to please, for the love of god, toss the child out the door at thirty thousand feet.

[nonamena]

If you have NRaas Careers, you can home school your kids, which is pretty fun. With Nraas Careers, teens can also get part time jobs at places like the hospital, science rabbithole etc. It adds a new dimension to how you play with kids. I find it way more fun and interesting than sending them off to boarding school, which feels like cheating.

[Johnny_Bravo]

Children in the sims are, to me, objects who cry, need food and cost money. Just like IRL.

[Retarded_Pig]

Children in the sims are, to me, objects who cry, need food and cost money. Just like IRL.
At least you can delete them ingame.

[PunkyBreester]

At least you can delete them ingame.

Aahaha! My mom used to be genuinely concerned that I'd grow up to be a psychopath, because in TS1 I'd drown the kids born with party hats..

[SuicidiaParasidia]

Aahaha! My mom used to be genuinely concerned that I'd grow up to be a psychopath, because in TS1 I'd drown the kids born with party hats..

assuming none of your children will be born with party hats, they should be perfectly safe.

[pico22]

Assuming ...

[Ghost sdoj]

But the kids born with party hats are the ones who are now Party Animals. XD

(I did wonder what kind of party the one who turned out to have 0 points in Nice and Outgoing was planning to go to, though.)