So I've recently started a "Beginning of...Pleasantveiw/Bluewater Village" combination hood. And currently the Goths and the Crumblebottoms have their toddlers toddling about and their babies...babying...around.

And having a bunch of toddlers at once just makes me once again realize something I've been unhappy with for years; the complete non-factor child rearing is in the game.

Now I'm mostly satisfied with "roleplaying" these kinds of things, but sometimes I do wish that the way parent sims treat their tiny, virtual spawn would have a gameplay effect beyond some green or red icons. Like if you teach a toddler all their skills you get to adjust some personality points upon age-up, and if their personality changes at random by a certain amount (for example, during a succesful age-up you get to add/subtract 5 Personality points the way you see fit, while when a Sim grows up badly, 5 PP get added/subtracted at random) Kinda the way Sims 3 has it with their traits (their horrible, horrible traits).

What do other people think? Are you happy with just roleplaying all these things and teaching the toddlers their skills simply because it's the "right thing to do"? Or do you wish there was some tangible reward/penalty involved here (beyond the good/bad memories)? Do you bother with the skills at all? Do you ever purposefully not teach Toddlers skills to simulate neglect?

Personally I do teach every toddler to talk and to walk, but I have stopped potty training them years and years ago simply because I know there's no penalty for it and it's such a hassle when compared to the other two skills.

No I am not happy with parenting or how skills have no effect or how kids need no real parenting and don't act up.

Well my game has a penalty for not potty training- it's bed wetting and yes that is a mod. Squinge I think.
I keep non walking toddlers behind a toddler gate playing that they can't use the stairs. They can, again I have a mod for that.

I decide on skills taught by sim motivation level.
Low toddlers do what they please
average toddlers skill if they have a want to but otherwise non directed
advanced toddlers will be directed to toys, not allowed down toilets or outside in the dark.

Low parents never teach skills
average parents teach skills if they roll a want
advanced parents teach all skills.

Only toddlers who can talk are allowed to ask for food.

I play with BO's aging mod so I can allow toddlers to be toddlers and not rush through their stage, same with children. I've never played 3 so I have no opinion on if I'd like that or not.

The only thing that I'd like to do, which I can, but from I read it doesn't save when you exit the lot, and that is to change the height of the toddler and child to indicate growth. My idea was to do it at the first of each season (I have a mod that makes my seasons 10 days rather than the 5).

I play with extended aging, so for me, the skills are a way to differentiate younger toddlers from older toddlers. For me, potty training is the only useful skill, because toddlers who are potty trained are more self sufficient. My biggest problem with the walking and talking skills is that they're not very organic. This has been on my mind as I've been making a few mods for toddlers, and imo, toddlers should gain speech skills every time they're talked to or read to, like in real life. Learning to walk shouldn't be a formal affair either, but that's more difficult to mod in. Toddlers who have better speech skills should get better grades. Maybe learning to walk should correlate with higher body skills.

The only useful skills are walking (the toddlers can move around a bit more, and I think it's one of the things that enables them to get out of the crib when they get cranky - I love that animation) and potty training (they can take care of that need on their own). Talking doesn't have any use that I've seen, and while the nursery rhyme is cute and may gain a few skill points, it doesn't have any other uses.

The skills also gain toddlers very useful aspiration points, but only if you teach them while they've got the wants. The skills also gain parents points if they have the wants to teach the toddler.

Back when I used to play generational, I would let toddlers skill up (usually waiting for the wants so they gained some points). Since they dont do much beside playing anyway, why not let them do something useful?

Isn't bed wetting in the game already? Several years ago Johnny Smith adopted a boy (townie), don't remember his name now, but his hair style was a bowl cut, he had brown or black hair. One night Johnny got out of bed and went to the boy's bedroom and helped change the sheets, this was all autonomous. I thought that was so sweet, but never saw it happen to any other sim since. I never heard of a wet the bed mod until recently though.

No, its a mod. Could be it is taken from the game the same way that the breastfeeding mod was, code that Maxis decided not to use. http://modthesims.info/d/476536

I don't like the way toddler skills have no bearing on the next stage in life. At the very least, children who can't talk when they start school should start out with a D grade, and maybe those who have learned both talking and nursery rhymes should start with a B. Alternatively, I would like it if toddlers actually needed to learn the three basic skills in order to age up: the option to age up after three days should only be available if they can walk, talk, and use the potty, and if they haven't learned after five days the social worker should call for them (although this would no doubt involve even more yelling at the Ottomas family than occurs already!). I also think children should be able to teach toddlers to talk, because realistically it's a skill we learn from all members of the household, not from one person sitting us down for a few hours of intensive language training.

Ideally, toddlers should not be able to ask for anything except attention until they've learned to talk, either through direct teaching or through interactions with others, and 'learn to read' should be a toddler skill that only becomes available once the toddler can talk, so that a child must either have been taught to read as a toddler or have been to school for a day before they can learn other skills from a book. (I only just thought of this, but I think I might play it this way from now on: toddlers with consistently high social skills will be considered 'able to talk', and only those who have officially learned to talk will be allowed to read before they start school.)

In my Sheffield hood, I simulate neglect by not teaching the main toddler skills unless a parent rolls a want to teach (in other hoods, I go by the toddler's want), and also by not buying educational toys for toddlers in households where the parents are poorly educated and/or unemployed. With only a doll house to play with, toddlers can't get a head start on learning the seven skills; this gives me a fairly realistic situation in which middle-class children are likely to do better in school and win more scholarships for college than the low-income children who most need those scholarships, creating a vicious circle of poverty breeding poverty.

I also include grandparents so the over achieving grandparent may come and take over teaching the skills, if the low achieving parent allows this or not depends on their own relationship to that grandparent.

My low toddlers I limit the 7 regular skills to a max of 3, regular toddlers to 4 and high to 5. I may need to lower this though, my sims all have too many skills.

If it helps, I scale motivation caps for toddlers based on their caps as adults. Maybe you can adjust the proportions? My overachiever toddlers are limited to 3, then 5 again when they're children and 8 as teens. Although it takes almost a lifetime for my sims to max out any one last skill point and I'd prefer they actually want the skill points, it evens out even with the longer lifespans.

Imo sims should be more or less clumsy depending how much they were taught to talkwalk (interesting how I notice from the typo that the two words are almost indentical with one letter key difference). Could gain a charismas skill boosts or a few points with it after learning how to talk. I like that there's a mod that makes children to have higher bladdler failure tendency in beds those who failed to learn potty.

How do you tell if a toddler/parent is low or high motivation? Whether or not they roll the wants?

I add tidiness and activity and minus playfulness. A score up to 0 is low motivation, a score of 1-7 is average and 8+ is high.

In case anyone's interested, here's a link to a discussion about it from last year.

Edit: A bit off-topic, but I like the concept of the TS4 toddler skill system. They gain more interactions as they learn more about a particular skill. With Movement, they start out stumbling somewhat but can climb stairs then eventually dance, run, and climb stairs better.

I am quite happy with it

Potty training - all toddlers are trained, and I don't think more than one or two have not learned it before growing up (which is quite awesome in my not so humble opinion for a hood full of twins).

If time allows, parents will teach toddlers to sing a nursery rhyme - I like if if they can, and it also helps them to keep themselves busy at times.

Walking and talking - I really don't bother with those two too often (in RL only have to listen to talking and be talked to and will get up and walk when they are ready. Besides, I like the animation when they crawl around, especially the very active ones).

Building relationships with the family members is important to me. Reading to and playing peekaboo takes preference in my game and every family member have to play peekaboo at least once with each toddler.

Honestly I'm so over the potty training, teach toddler to walk and talk, etc. At one time it was fun and cute, now not so much. It find it a little boring and tedious. Unless the parents or the grandparents have a want to teach a specific skill, I use the Sim Blender to enable toddler skills based on the toddlers wants. I also allow family members to autonomously interact with toddlers; I don't force them, especially Siblings. The Sim children in my game will interact with their toddler siblings on their own whether it's being affectionate (hugging and kissing them), playing with them or teasing them.

Most of my toddlers have all the toddler skills as well as games of peek-a-boo and everything else, it's one reason I use a longer aging mod, 8 days gives everyone plenty of time.

I can live with 8 days for toddlers, I think - it is the adult life stage that is just too long! So I do sometimes use the blender to make the todds 3 days younger, especially when there are more than one set of twins and one set has just grown up. But even then I don't bother with teach to walk and teach to talk very often - I prefer to let them dance to the radio/chase butterflies/play or eat snow/hug wolves Now if it rains a lot and both parents are the day off - maybe a walking lesson may happen. Maybe. Or I may just get that flamingo of the dance instead (That is, of course, if the parents can keep their hands off each other long enough too).

Sometimes, it almost feel as if I don't take things seriously enough when I read what other players do and the trouble they will go to. Not that it is going to bother me in the least I love the game, but having fun is a must. And I don't enjoy the teach to talk/walk much.

For me it's not a matter of time, I use an aging mod that gives toddlers 6 days and I've add days at times. I really concentrate on the wants in regard to training and playing with Toddlers. In my game I've found that toddlers can be very specific about how they want to be treated. Not all want to be tickled, tossed in the air or play peekaboo. Some just want to be talked to, snuggled or read to. I've noticed that even when it comes to their skills not all toddlers will roll a want to be trained in everything. All want to be potty trained, and for the most part they also want to talk; but it seems to me walking, and the desire to learn the nursery rhyme is optional depending on the toddler. I've had some toddlers that didn't roll a want to walk or sing a nursery rhyme, however their parents or grandparents wanted to teach them to do those things. So I just concentrate on what they want. I just no longer feel obligated to give toddler skills in the traditional manner.

I like that the nursery rhyme can be taught by children. I had a child teach his toddler brother.

My adults are adults for 74 days. We all play how we enjoy and that's all that matters.

not really

Of course we do and I know Because I know you use the mod by Hat play sims. That is what I mean - too long for me.

Actually I don't use hat's mod-its even too long for me! I use double aging from here but add an extra 14 days onto the adult life stage. (that is their post menopause stage) Pretty sure Hat's adult stage is way longer. I did try it but 12 days for toddlers and kids was something like 30? Way too long.

Oh, that makes sense - you may have mentioned it when you were trying it. I remember I went looking at it; seriously considering it and decided it is really too long!
I have tried an aging mod or 2 when I discovered mods It just did not work for me (maybe I still have to find the perfect one). Now I am so used to manipulating ages that I am not sure it is worth bothering.