The Sims 4 Children: Raising Kids and Going to School
Children are one of the most fun and magical life stages to raise in The Sims 4 and are probably the most interesting children that we’ve ever had. They have their own set of skills, interesting aspirations, and adorable interactions to complete with their family members.
In the original base game, babies would grow straight into children and there were no toddlers so it was an even more important life stage since you didn’t have as much time with your children to really make a difference in their lives.
Your sim children will be alive for 14 days on a normal lifespan, only 7 days on a short lifespan, and 52 days on a long lifespan.
Children’s Skills
Unlike previous games, in The Sims 4 Children are given their own set of skills to master and learn. This means that you probably wont be starting your child’s life as a teen with any real skills but that adds another level of difficulty to the game.
If you can get your child sim to max out any of these skills they will have adult skills unlocked so you can start skill building for the future!
- Max Mental unlocks: Logic, Video Gaming, Fishing
- Max Social unlocks: Charisma, Mischief,
- Max Creativity unlocks: Piano, Violin
- Max Motor unlocks: None
There are 4 skills for children to learn in game and they are as follows:
Mental
The mental skill is related to all things brainiac. Your sim can gain the mental skill by playing chess alone or with another sim, using the science table to craft potions, or stargazing in the observatory.
Motor
To grow the motor skill, your sim can use the monkey bars or jungle gym, so essentially they just get to play. They can also earn the skill by practicing typing on the computer.
Creativity
Your sim can gain the creativity skill by playing with dolls or drawing pictures on the activity table. Your sim can also play the child sized violin to gain the activity skill rather quickly.
Social
Children can gain the social skill by talking to a stuffed animal (i.e., Blarffy) or performing puppet shows. They can also gain social skill by just socializing with their friends and family.
Children’s Aspirations
When your sim ages up from a toddler to a children in the game, you’ll be given the opportunity to choose a child-specific aspiration for them to complete.
You’ll also get to choose a trait to go right along with it, and I’ve always been a big fan of choosing a trait that goes along with the aspiration. For example, if you were to choose the Whiz Kid aspiration, you may want to make your sim a genius so they can feel focused often and gain the mental skill a bit faster.
There are 4 aspirations for your child sims to choose from:
Whiz Kid
The whiz kid aspiration focuses entirely on building your child’s mental skill and will give your sim the mentally gifted reward trait which will help them gain all adult mental skills faster (rocket science, logic, fishing).
Level One
- Be Read to By an Adult For 2 Hours
- Play 3 Games of Chess
Level Two
- Reach Level 5 of the Mental Skill
- Finish Homework 2 Times
Level Three
- Receive an A in School
- Craft 3 Emotional Potions
- Reach Level 10 of the Mental Skill
Social Butterfly
The social butterfly aspiration will focus on building your sim’s social skill and when you finish it your sim will be given the socially gifted trait which can help them learn social skills faster (comedy, mischief, charisma).
Level One
- Make A Friend
- Meet 5 New Sims
Level Two
- Achieve Level 5 of Social Skill
- Make a BFF
Level Three
- Be Friends with 3 Children
- Be Friends with 2 Adults
- Achieve Level 10 of the Social Skill
Rambunctious Scamp
The rambunctious scamp aspiration focuses on building your sim’s motor skill and when completed it will give your child sim the physically gifted trait which will help them build their fitness skill faster as a teen or older.
Level One
- Play on Jungle Gym While Playful
- Hit Level 2 of the Motor Skill
Level Two
- Reach Motor Skill Level 5
- Practice Typing for Four Hours
Level 3
- Reach Level 10 of the Motor Skill
- Make it Across The Monkey Bars 3 Times
- Earn a High Score on the Typing Game
Artistic Prodigy
The artistic prodigy aspiration is focused on building your sim’s creativity skill and if completed will give your child the trait creatively gifted which will help them build creative skills faster as a teen or older (painting, writing, instruments).
Level One
- Have an Activity Table
- Draw 2 Pictures While Inspired
Level Two
- Reach Creativity Level 5
- Play With 3 Toys
Level Three
- Play Instruments for 5 Hours
- Draw all 5 Picture Types on the Activity Table
- Reach Level 10 of the Creativity Skill
Going to School
When your sim ages up from a toddler to a child they will now have a bit more responsibility and will need to go to school each day. They’ll be there everyday from 8 am to 3 pm and if you don’t attend your principal will call and not be too happy with your sim.
When your sim first starts school, they have a C grade and in order for them to get a B they must complete their homework each day and also get a skill to level 2 (it doesn’t matter which skill, so it goes nicely with an aspiration).
To get your sim from a B to an A they will need to complete their homework each day, and also get a skill to level 4 (also doesn’t matter which skill!).
While at school your sim has a few options to choose from Normal, Make Friends, Study Hard, Leave School Early, or Slack Off. If you want to get your sim to get an A faster, you’ll want to have them study hard.
Doing Homework
When your sim ages from a toddler to a child their homework will automatically spawn into their inventory. This means that you don’t need to wait until your first day of school to get a jump start on your education.
If you want your sim to finish their homework quicker, you can get an adult sim to come click on the child and choose the “Help With Homework” interaction.
If you want your child sim to get a better grade, they can also do extra credit but that is only available after they have already completed their regular homework. This will give them a boost in performance for the next time they go to school. *Note: This is only an available option for a sim that has at least a B.
If your sim can get all of their child level skills to at least level 3, their homework interaction will change to breeze through homework and they will be able to get it done a lot faster. If you can get all of your child’s skills to level 7, your sim will now be able to dominate homework meaning they will get it done incredibly fast.
School Projects
School projects were a new addition to children and teen sims when The Sims 4: Parenthood was released. These projects are a nice addition to the life stage because it makes it seem a bit more real, because kids DO often come home with projects and need their parents help to get them done.
You will get a notification in the top right corner that says “sims name has come home with a school project. Completing the project will grant school process. Additional progress will be awarded if the project is completed quickly”.
Working on a school project helps build skills for your child, which is a nice bonus as opposed to just doing homework. You can even buy a school project in build mode and do them just to gain skills without having to do them for school.
Your adult sims can also help their kids with school projects by clicking on the project when a sim is already working on it and clicking “Assist with Project”. This will make the school project be completed in half the time.
There are 7 available school projects for your children to complete:
- Chemical Reaction Volcano (Mental Skill)
- Construct-a-Bridge (Mental Skill)
- Air Pressure Rocketry (Mental Skill)
- Electricity Experiments (Mental Skill)
- Robotics (Mental Skill)
- Solar System (Mental Skill)
- Medieval Castle Diorama (Creativity Skill)
Skipping School
As with all other sims games, your children don’t have to go to school if you don’t want them to. All you need to do is cancel their action to go to school when it pops up at 8 am and they won’t attend. If you so choose, you can also get your child to Leave School Early if you forget to do so.
Not going to school makes it so your sim’s grade will decrease from a C to a D and eventually down to an F. Unlike past sims games, there is no military school for kids who didn’t go to school (was this just the sims 1?).
Your sim’s principal will be calling you twice during the day when you skip school. There is no real downfall to skipping as all children will start high school with a C when they age up to a teen.
Character Values
If you have The Sims 4: Parenthood, your children will have character values that are going to influence their personalities as they grow up. You’ll be able to see these inside the personality panel right above where you find your sim’s traits.
When your sim gets high enough character values they will be given entirely new traits when they become an adult (i.e., a responsible trait). There are 5 character values that your children can grow, let’s go over each a little bit.
1. Responsibility
Your children will gain responsibility through doing things like homework, school projects, extra credit, and going to school each day. If they ignore their homework, they will see a decrease in their responsibility.
2. Manners
Your sim can increase their manners by doing things like cleaning up dirty dishes after they eat or setting the dinner table. You can also increase your child’s manners by getting an adult sim to teach them how to say please and thank you. If your sim burps a ton or is rude to strangers they will see a strong decrease in their manners.
3. Conflict Resolution
To increase your children’s conflict resolution they can do things like apologizing when they upset another sim, or helping other sims fix their negative relationships. If they start to argue with their family members or friends their conflict resolution will decrease.
4. Emotional Control
Your sim can increase their emotional control if they deal with their positive emotions in a healthy way. For example, if your child has a bad day at school and come home with an angry moodlet, they can go take an angry poop to deal with it and they will gain emotional control.
5. Empathy
I find that empathy is the hardest one to increase as a child, but it can be done! You can purchase a doctor’s toy kit from build mode and get your child to play with it to increase their empathy. Doing mean interactions with other sims will quickly decrease their empathy.
Teaching Moments
A teaching moment is a pop-up that will appear in game and let you choose an answer to a peculiar situation that your child is going through. These teaching moments can increase their character values and make them a well-rounded sim.
These teaching moments will be decided by the parents and can either increase or decrease their values based on the answers you choose. They can really influence how a child ages up and the traits they get as they go into adulthood.
Children’s Death in The Sims 4
In the sims 4, your children can actually pass away for a number of different reasons and can be a really sad moment if it happens to your family. There are 5 ways that your children can pass away:
- Death by Drowning
- Death by Fire
- Death by Pufferfish Nigiri (City Living)
- Death by Freezing (Seasons)
- Death by Overheating (Seasons)
Your children will not be able to die of starvation because they will be taken away before they are able to do this, they also can’t die emotional deaths like a cardiac explosion.
Aging Up Children
When aging up any sim you have two options, either wait until they age up on their own, or bake them a cake if you want them to age up early or if you throw them a birthday party. I’m a big fan of playing The Sims 4 on a long lifespan and baking my child a cake to age them up when they have completed at least one aspiration.
Final Thoughts
Raising a child in The Sims 4 can be really fun and genuinely rewarding, even though they are just virtual children. You can teach your children so much and really get to know your children’s personalities! Do you often play with children in The Sims 4? What’s your favourite children aspiration? Let me know in the comments!
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