Do the parents spend time with their children/teens ?

LeGardePourpre · November 2021

Hi,

I was thinking about Parent-Child bonding activities and this question came to me.

Do you care about their relationship ?

Not simply create the usual friendship, I mean a parent dedicating time to create unique memories for their child.
For example : Father-son vacation in Granite Falls while the other younger children and the mother are still at home.

NorthDakotaGamer · November 2021

Other choice

It depends on the save. My decades saves has a more story driven nature to the relationships is a part of that. My 100 baby save, I don't care.

Sharonia · November 2021

Yes

I mostly always like to make sure that my family sims have good relationships with their offspring.

CK213 · November 2021

Other choice

Children, yes, but sending my teens off to my Uni prep school is part of normal game play for me.
So a lot of teen development happens at the prep school that has a student counselor (teacher/professor) and a school administrator.
They both have max parenting skills.

It's nice that parents will come and visit the school and I have teens visit home on the weekends.
I do give them a little time to bond at the teen stage before shipping them off to prep school however.

musteni · November 2021

Yes

Never done a holiday, but they could play chess together, go fishing or read books. Just some examples. I like the idea of creating more specific situations.

Edit: I meant never done father-son vacation like in your examples. I do celebrate regular holidays all the time and the whole family takes part.

duhboy2u2 · November 2021

Yes

Love doing holidays though Christmas is depressing in my game with toddlers because father winter still won't give my nooboos gifts so they always get the sad moodlet. My favorite interaction is the one where the parent reads to the little ones. I also send them out a lot to do the parenthood things where they can go to bake sales and volunteer at soup kitchens and nursing homes and the like. I try to do family BBQs and pool "parties" and just simple things like homework help.

AngeliqueAdelaide · November 2021

Other choice

I usually move my kids out as soon as they become teens - with at least 20 000 simoleons each, I am not a monster - because I struggle with working on the life plan of more than one sim at a time, but they stay in touch, hang out regularly and have a good relationship 95% of the time ( the remaining 5% being parents who were never in their children's lives to begin with, who were awful people or who died). I actually have more difficulty maintaining relationships between siblings, as sometimes the age difference is so big that they never lived together and have to be introduced to each other.

simgirl1010 · November 2021

Yes

My sim parents are very hands on. Always helping with homework and school projects. Each parent spending time with each child. The children don't vacation alone with a parent but there are plenty of one on one outings. Shopping, lunching, arcade, etc.

VeeDub · November 2021

Other choice

Depends on the save and the sim(s) in it. Many of my played sims don't have kids of their own. Some do, but not all of them live in the same household as traditional families. Of the ones that do, most generally spend a lot of time with their offspring. Of the ones that don't, it depends on the kind of person they are. Some want nothing to do with young'uns at all, some parents will spend time with them if their offspring chooses to seek them out, and some parents purposely seek them out to make time for them.

Rouensims · November 2021

I'm not sure I understand the question. My Sim families don't go on vacations together, but they spend tons of time together talking, laughing, and saying nice things to each other.

Simmingal · November 2021

Other choice

I don't really separately think of it as family bonding time but yeah my sims do socialize some with their parents

tbh probably more than other sims cause i only really start getting them connected to other households at teen/ ya stage as i don't want to age up too many sims atm

GrumpyGlowfish · November 2021

Yes

Mine do, albeit mostly for selfish reasons. My sims take their aspirations very seriously, and there are family aspirations for adults that require interactions with children, as well as child aspirations that require interactions with adults, so... win-win.

Mariefoxprice83 · November 2021

Yes

I try to have my families eat their meals together as much as possible, parents always help kids with homework and school projects unless I want the kid to grow up irresponsible or with bad grades. I try to get them doing other things together as well, and that includes going on vacation.

DoloresGrey · November 2021

Other choice

Mine do, but rarely. I don't consider much activities as the bonding time because there is not much to do that feels like family bonding time.

And if there is the animation sucks. A good example is the toddlers' building cubes. Why the parent is standing and watching the toddler while playing with them when there is already a sitting on knees animation when playing with the teaching cards? I am asking why???? Boo.

invisiblgirl · November 2021

Yes

Mariefoxprice83 wrote: »

I try to have my families eat their meals together as much as possible, parents always help kids with homework and school projects unless I want the kid to grow up irresponsible or with bad grades. I try to get them doing other things together as well, and that includes going on vacation.

Pretty much the same, here - the parent always helps with school work. Breakfast together never works out, but they always eat dinner together and socialise, and the parent always puts the kid to bed. When there is more time - weekends and holidays - they play chess together or build snowpals. If a parent is creative, they can encourage the kid while she's drawing or playing the violin, and if they've got enough chess skill, they can mentor her.

Also, for the 'discipline your child five times' goal in the family aspirations, the parent can achieve that by encouraging a child when they've done something good, like doing homework or dishes. I use it a lot with my toddlers - after teaching the tot to say 'please and thank you', the parent can 'encourage learning to say please and thank you'. The other useful thing about this interaction is that not only does it build communication skill, the toddler also gets a leg up on the 'good manners' trait. (Of course, with toddlers, my Sim parents pretty much devote the entire day to the little one.)

Babykittyjade · November 2021

Yes

Depends on the family. I have 4 main families I rotate between and although their lives connect in various ways (like teens from different homes being friends or knowing eachother from school)
They all live different lifestyles so that way I get to play in different ways depending on what I'm in the mood for.

.Some have parents or elder caretakers that are very attentive and others have parents that are mean and neglectful.
Always arguing.
One pair of teen siblings that had neglectful parents actually finds comfort and love from the spiritual emotionally mindful vampire I have. They fall for eachother (like parent and child) and form a bond. And the vampire loves them as if they were his own.
Eventually adopts them. And since he's a celebrity they get to go out to 5star restaurants and exclusive celebrity locations. But overall he is a very attentive parents and they do loads of activities together.

So yes I love creating unique and different relationships.

I really hope we get more things for sims to do together. And not all object based. I love the sim to sim interactions. Especially since I like to play a lot of apocalypse stories where all they pretty much have is a camp fire. 🥲
Would be nice to still do a lot of interactive things together without having loads of objects like piggy back rides, pillowfights, those hand games like mary mack, tag, hangout on the ground, walking and holding hands and so on.
The walk together from snowy escape is very very nice but I wish it wasn't only limited to that world, and that you could carry toddlers along.

babajayne · November 2021

Yes

I can’t leave children idle for any length of time before they go and ask a parent for advice. 🙄 Then usually I’ll keep a convo going if either of them has whims about the other, which is typical.

I do make an effort to have them do things together like homework, eating or card games. I learned to shuffle fancy when I was 6 and my family often plays cards (shout out to Manipulation, best game ever) but it’d be nice to have board games, too. It also depends on what they like to do, like obviously Mortimer plays chess with Alexander a lot. If a kid has been good, they might beg for toys and then I’ll buy them some voidcritters. Teens usually spend more time with friends and their relationship with their parents takes nothing to maintain so I’m up for more challenge there which I’m trying out a relationship mod for.

My toddlers frequently have whims about their parents and I try to meet those. It’s boring to just have them skill build all day (so easy) so I go by what their whims say or let their autonomy drive them.

GalacticGal · November 2021

Other choice

I had great plans of Joseph Cantrell taking his family on some kind of holiday over the summer. So far, it hasn't happened but then again, I had to reset my game again. My bad. I was finding it really interesting, however, because the couple have five children, four of whom are Teens, the youngest a Child (change of life surprise), he was. Four boys and one girl. I have Parenthood and I love this pack so much. That combined with the other tidbits they gave us in patches. Joey, the third son has been walking around very hurt before my game collapsed. Seems, his father's workaholic lifestyle makes him feel very neglected. This broke my heart, actually. The father is in the teaching profession and has risen in the ranks. For a time, he was a Mentor Teacher. I think he's at least one notch above that most recently. But he loves his family very much. And he does sit down at the dining room table with them to grade papers while they did their homework. That was up until he had to write scholarly papers every day for his new position. He would even help with homework on his own. He's a good dad. He really is.

So, now that my efforts to get my game back on track sent me back mostly to the beginning of this particular save, I may be certain to take them on a Snowy Escape over the hot summer months. They currently reside in Del Sol Valley (Valley of the Sun) as in, it's hotter than sin. Perhaps, he can spend more one-on-one with Joey, his namesake. Knowing that Joey aspires to become a Physician, he did use some of the Inheritance money to buy the kid one of those spectacularly large microscopes you can actually sit upon. And the well-oversized telescope to spy on the neighbors, er, the night skies. Yes, let's spend the time productively. "Scan the night skies, son. Expand that cranium." (Joey is a bonifide genius.)

ETA: Their mother is Erractic, so she's very special. She spends time with her kids, when she's not flipping out and talking to the coat tree. LOL

Peral · November 2021

Yes

simgirl1010 wrote: »

My sim parents are very hands on. Always helping with homework and school projects. Each parent spending time with each child. The children don't vacation alone with a parent but there are plenty of one on one outings. Shopping, lunching, arcade, etc.

Same but with a twist, the children has to build their own relationships and often employ a club system to spend time with children of their own age

Babykittyjade · November 2021

Yes

babajayne wrote: »

I can’t leave children idle for any length of time before they go and ask a parent for advice. 🙄 Then usually I’ll keep a convo going if either of them has whims about the other, which is typical.

I do make an effort to have them do things together like homework, eating or card games. I learned to shuffle fancy when I was 6 and my family often plays cards (shout out to Manipulation, best game ever) but it’d be nice to have board games, too. It also depends on what they like to do, like obviously Mortimer plays chess with Alexander a lot. If a kid has been good, they might beg for toys and then I’ll buy them some voidcritters. Teens usually spend more time with friends and their relationship with their parents takes nothing to maintain so I’m up for more challenge there which I’m trying out a relationship mod for.

My toddlers frequently have whims about their parents and I try to meet those. It’s boring to just have them skill build all day (so easy) so I go by what their whims say or let their autonomy drive them.

I just had a nightmare flashback of my kids lining up to ask the nearest adult for advice everytime I turn autonomy on😭😭😭
Edited to add that it was 7 kids in an orphanage I made last time. I gave them a dream play area in the basement. Then one by one they were all trailing from the basement to the third floor and I'm like what's going on? I check their queue and it all said ask for advice 😭😭

maplesyrup19 · November 2021

Other choice

Other Choice - It depends on how I want to play. If I'm playing the game normally (marriage, birth, death) then no. If I'm telling a story, then yes.

Sindocat · November 2021

Yes

Unless I set up intentionally antagonistic traits, my families are close. Kids seek out parents to interact with, and parents interact with children (including teens). Often, I find my adults autonomously helping with homework. And I always go out of my way to make Monday after school a family event, working on school projects together. If one parent is free, they help the youngest first. If both are, one helps the next youngest. Teens often have help from friends that come home with them, or visiting Young Adult siblings who have moved away.

I only occasionally schedule specific, targeted, one-on-one parent/child interactions, for particular purposes if I feel there is a need. Otherwise, my sims' parents remain close regardless, throughout their lives, and I can usually count on seeing them at least once a week, without going out of my way to arrange it, even after they have grown up, moved out, and started their own independent career.

SERVERFRA · November 2021

Yes

I always want my Parent & Child family relationships to be very good.

That being said, when I play an evil/wicked Step-Mother & good Step-Daughter, I make them polar opposites that don't get along. Meh, ha, ha, ha.

SnaveXs · November 2021

Yes

It depends on the parent because some of my sim parents get the passive parent sentiment. I wish Sims could autonomously discipline their own children. I've had parents walk right pass their kids putting paint everywhere on the ground. In my head, I be like you aren't going to check your kid for making a mess.

ignominiusrex · November 2021

Other choice

I had to choose other because it really depends on the save and my mood. I have had one or two in which family play is involved, but for the most part, the grind of parenthood in the game is less interesting to me than the many things adult Sims can do, when not shackled to kith and kinder. When I do family play, the parents have the reward trait of never needing any sleep, because otherwise, they'd never get to do anything fun, or else they'd have to cut corners somewhere.

I wish I knew of a way to slow down the clock without slowing Sims down, so that there would be more time in a day, because it's hard to have a breather, to let Sims just exist and experience anything because one pause and it's bedtime already. Maybe all the daily activities just take too long to perform, so there's a sense of being rushed through life?

LeGardePourpre · November 2021

Other choice

It's easier for me to control the parents when their children live in separate houses with their grandparents.
The parents can spend time with them at the restaurant, swimming pool, beach and arcade (bar).

When they live all in the same house, I don't find the time (Parenting, chores, homework, children social life, parent romance, career, scout, diary).

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Do the parents spend time with their children/teens ?

Do the parents spend time with their children/teens ? 73 votes

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