The Sims 4: Parenthood Game Pack came with a very in-depth character values system that can change the way your young sims will behave when they are an adult.

Your young sim’s character values will appear in the Simology Panel where you’d see your sim’s traits. It will appear here for any sim who is a toddler, child, or teen.

When your sim performs certain interactions they will gain or lose a bit of a character value based on the type of interaction that they are performing. For example, a sim who finishes their homework will gain a bit of responsibility.

Types of Character Values

There are 5 types of character values that your young sims will be able to gain, or completely lose and become a little bit evil. Below, we’re going to talk about the different character values, the things that you can do to gain or lose the value, as well as the traits you can gain.

Responsibility

I’ve found that responsibility is the easiest of the character values for you to increase, as it goes up every time your sim does their homework. It’s important that you focus yourself on not getting the negative responsibility trait, as this can serious affect your sim’s ability to get promoted and earn good money.

Things That Increase Responsibility

  • Finishing Homework
  • Getting A’s in School
  • Completing School Projects
  • Doing Extra Credit
  • Teenagers Going to Work
  • Cleaning Up Toys
  • Cleaning Up Messes
  • Being a Perfectionist

Things That Decrease Responsibility

  • Breaking Curfew
  • Ignoring a Grounding
  • Quitting a Job as a Teenager
  • Skipping School
  • Getting Bad Grades
  • Being Childish

Positive Trait: Responsible

When you get the positive responsible trait, you’re able to teach any children and teenagers around you to be more responsible and this can seriously help future generations gain responsibility. These sims love to work hard and will get tense less often than a regular sim, this means that they have a better chance of getting promoted at their job.

Negative Trait: Irresponsible

A sim who has the negative irresponsible trait really dislikes going to work, or doing anything that regular people need to do. Like paying their bills. Essentially, an irresponsible sim will get an uncomfortable moodlet every single day that they go to work, so it may be best that they just work from home. This moodlet can make it insanely difficult for your sim to get promoted, and can really affect a sim’s ability to be successful.

Manners

Manners are a really important character value because it strongly influences how your sim will interact with others in the future, and their ability to make friends easily. The best way to get an initial boost is to teach your children and toddlers how to say please and thank you.

Things That Increase Manners

  • Setting The Table
  • Being Neat
  • Friendly Introductions
  • Complimenting Other Sims
  • Cleaning up Dishes
  • Being Taught to Say Please and Thank You

Things That Decrease Manners

  • Using Forbidden Words
  • Belching
  • Farting
  • Using Rude Introductions
  • Being a slob

Positive Trait: Good Manners

A sim who has the positive good manners trait is the type of sim you want to spend time with. They aren’t going to do things like burping, farting, and shouting forbidden words. They even get a brand new introduction, polite introduction which will help them and give them a boost to their friendships that is bigger than most of the other introductions.

Negative Trait: Bad Manners

A sim who has the negative bad manners trait will usually fail any time they try and be social, especially with strangers. You’ll find them often shouting forbidden words, leaving dishes around the house, farting, burping, and just generally being extremely gross. People won’t really want to spend time around sims with this trait!

Conflict Resolution

Anytime your sim gets into an argument with another sim, they need to figure out ways to resolve that conflict to gain positive character values. It’s important that as a parent you teach your kid’s how to say sorry!

Things That Increase Conflict Resolution

  • Apologizing
  • Reconciling
  • Learning How to Say Sorry From Parents
  • Try to Fix Bad Relationship Interactions
  • Being Outgoing

Things That Decrease Conflict Resolution

  • Declaring Someone Your Enemy
  • Being Hot Headed
  • Being Despised by a Sim
  • Fighting
  • Arguing

Positive Trait: Mediator

Sims who have the mediator trait are going to be much more likely to have apologies accepted by other sims who have they wronged and can improve relationships with anyone who they haven’t spoken to in a while.

Negative Trait: Argumentative

A sim who has the argumentative trait are more likely to use mean interactions with other sims. They are way less likely to have an apology be accepted, and a lot of sims don’t want to talk to them because they don’t want to get into fights.

Empathy

This is one of the character values that is most difficult to increase because your sim needs to be around someone who is experiencing negative emotions to get the job done. I’ve found it’s easiest to get your child sim to use the doctor playset as often as possible, and try to keep it up through your teenage years.

Things That Increase Empathy

  • Being Good
  • Volunteering (Through Your Phone)
  • Using The Doctor Playset (kids only)
  • Calming Down Other Sims
  • Cheering Up Other Sims

Things That Decrease Empathy

  • Hitting a Stuffed Animal
  • Being Mean
  • Being Evil
  • Using Mean Social Interactions
  • Trolling the Forums
  • Yelling at Sims

Positive Trait: Compassionate

A sim with the compassionate trait hate being mean to other sims and being mean will make them feel tense for a while. They are able to help other sims deal with their emotions and can be a really great sim to have around. They are even able to share an emotional burden to help someone deal with their emotions further.

Negative Trait: Insensitive

Sims who have the insensitive trait are going to fail with their social interactions much more often than other sims. They are able to instigate other sims to make them angry, so they aren’t the greatest to be around. They can even question another sim’s negative emotions instead of being nice about them.

Emotional Control

I’ve found emotional control to be one of the harder character values to gain since they actually need to experience some negative emotions for them to do any of the things that increase emotional control. So, I’d say that it’s easier to just stay neutral for this one.

Things That Increase Emotional Control

  • Writing in a Journal
  • Jogging When in a Negative Mood
  • Being Self-Assured
  • Blogging When in a Negative Mood

Things That Decrease Emotional Control

  • Destroying a Doll House
  • Being Jealous
  • Being Erratic
  • Hitting a Sim
  • Destroying Someone’s School Project
  • Yelling at Other Sims

Positive Trait: Emotional Control

Any sim who has the emotional control trait can get rid of their negative emotions so much faster than other sims. Let’s say your sim is feeling angry, going for a jog will help get rid of this anger by a lot more than if you didn’t have this trait.

Negative Trait: Uncontrolled Emotions

Sims with the uncontrolled emotions trait will take way longer to get rid of their negative emotions (i.e., angry, tense, etc). Let’s say your sim is feeling sad, doing things like giving yourself a pep talk in the mirror is going to decrease the sadness slower than if your sim didn’t have this trait. These sims are more likely to have a meltdown as well, which can be helpful if you’re trying to complete an emotional death.

How Character Values Work

Character values aren’t that complicated a system, thankfully! Any sim who is a toddler, child, or teenager, can gain character values, or lose character values depending on their interactions.

When your sim first starts, they will begin with all character values being neutral. By doing positive interactions, you’ll get your sim’s character values into the green, if you do negative interactions, you’ll get your sim’s character values into the red.

If a teenaged sim has a character value in the highest level of the range (both positive and negative) they have the opportunity to gain a trait that will stick to them from the time they age up to young adult.

Influencing Your Child’s Character Values

Some of the most valuable influences on your child’s character values is the interactions the parent sims have with them. The more effort you put into actually parenting your sim children, the more positive character values and positive traits they will have.

The Sims 4: Parenthood came with tons of new socials that can be found under the Parenting interaction category and these things will heavily influence your sim’s character values.

If your child is making a mess on the floor with paint, you can choose to discipline them and this will teach them a bit of responsibility. You can also praise your children for doing positive things like doing their homework or cleaning up after themselves.

It’s best to use these parenting techniques when your sim is in a good mood, because if you have an angry or sad parent, the parenting won’t go as well as if they were feeling happy.

Parenthood added a lot of realistic gameplay, to the point where you can even ground your children for 24 hours. This parenting interaction allows you to ground them for doing something negative, like staying out past curfew and lasts 24 straight hours. The options are endless, as you can stop them from spending time with their friends, playing with electronics, and so much more.

Teachable Moments

When you’re a parent, you’re going to have a ton of teachable moment pop-ups that can influence your children’s character values. You’ll be given a scenario that your child is experiencing and you’ll be given 3 options to choose from as an answer.

When you choose an option, your sim will increase one character value and decrease another. So, there is no completely positive decision.

It’s important to note that the higher your parenting skill, the better your chance at good influence! When you have a higher parenting skill, you’ll get to see which character values will go up and down when you’re given a teachable moment, so if your sim is just within reach of responsible, you can make decisions to increase it.

Final Thoughts

The Sims 4: Parenthood really makes family game play so much more interesting, and adds so many layers of teaching your kid’s to be well rounded individuals. Have you ever managed to get your sim’s a positive character value? I’ve always found that the responsibility one is easiest, if you just manage to always finish your homework!