Sims 4 Mums and Dads! Parenting in the new Sims game...

Charrrlotta18 · May 2013

HorseyMandz wrote:

I also think kids should be able to ride horses/ponies (having horses and ponies in TS4 Pets if there is one would be nice) but only at walk and trot.

Yeah that would be a nice touch

It was so weird that a child sim could have the Equestrian trait which meant they basically loved horses, but they were unable to ride the bloody things!? In what world does that make sense? Lol

Ceeecee3 · May 2013

I think common sense with handling babies would be nice. It's so weird to see sims setting their kids down on the ground just to watch tv or something.

More realistic interactions for feeding and changing babies would be great also. I like that babies were a challenge in ts2. You had to actually go to the refrigerator to get a bottle and if you changed a baby without the changing table, the diaper would fall to the ground.

It just needs to not be so easy. Great ideas, guys!

hyperbole · May 2013

I'd love to have a home-school option.....maybe some way of filling the same bar for grades, but they don't have to be at the rabbithole school......kinda like how learning skills improves grades at University, but they wouldn't ever have to attend class. I've thought this would be nice when I've had "Loner" children, or wanted to focus more on skill-building at that age.

I'm imagining some sort of kit that gets sent through the mail, with lesson plans, so the kid still has to do "homework" like they would for school.....maybe some tools that the parent could use to interact with and teach the child.....parents with high skills could be able to teach faster.....or, you could have a child be self-motivated and teach themselves.

Ladyliberty1301 · May 2013

What about allowance for kids and teens? Parents could give them small amounts of money for doing chores or having good grades and the child or teen could save it in their inventory or spend it at the ice cream truck

bethyGrace · May 2013

This forum is amazing! So many well-thought-out posts.
I'd like to echo the request for a return of the "Hand Baby To" interaction - such a simple thing! There are also a couple things they took out of TS3 which I think really contributed to the realism of TS2. Mainly:
- dirty diapers. Where do they go?
- Baby bottles ... Where do THEY go, and where do they COME from? O_o
- bathing toddlers - one of the cutest, most precious interactions a TS2 parent had, and
- kissing babies (already been mentioned, but I wanted to echo it)
The mayhem in the house of a large TS2 family was phenomenal. Dirty diapers, smelly bottles, toddlers playing in toilets - that seems a lot more realistic than TS3, and I think it might have contributed to the "magic" of TS2 which was lacking.
I like that to feed a TS3 baby a bottle, you don't have to click on the fridge. But I think that sims should still have to walk to a fridge to get the bottle! And on the subject of feeding... I know this is a children's game, but how about breast-feeding for newborns? With a blur if they must, but it is a beautiful bonding time for mother and baby.

A lot of people have mentioned we need more interactions between family members, and I completely agree. Whizzy-dizzes, walking on an adult's feet, board games, and an improvement on family meal times. I love the idea of setting out enough plates for everyone in the house to eat, and having them speak to one another more.

So much to think about. Will keep this forum tabbed!

nesgirl · May 2013

It always bothered me that the parent never picked the punishment for the child in TS3 and TS2. Children should be punishable, and there should be selectable punishments, like no video games, locking the child in the house at night.
Also, I found it odd that only the police knew that the teens snuck out past curfew in TS3. The parents need to be much smarter, and punishments need to be enforced, so that they aren't arrested and sent to juvy (which I am hoping is one of the possible punishments for staying out past curfew).

YorkieGirl4 · May 2013

Has somebody already mentioned daycare? I don't like the babysitters, when my parents go to work I'd love an option to take babies, toddlers, and children to a daycare either at the school or elsewhere and set the time to pick them up at.

playeralyalywekl · May 2013

Parenting can never be but so hard in any Sims game because children can't really make bad choices. Sure, they can pull pranks, skip school, and stay out after curfew, but that's not really the sort of problematic behavior and attitude that can make parenting hard.

JabuJabule · May 2013

playeralyalywekl wrote:

Parenting can never be but so hard in any Sims game because children can't really make bad choices. Sure, they can pull pranks, skip school, and stay out after curfew, but that's not really the sort of problematic behavior and attitude that can make parenting hard.

Uh...how don't those attitudes make parenting hard? Preteens and teenagers that do that stuff usually become delinquents, because they find it to be perfectly fine. :?

playeralyalywekl · May 2013

JabuJabule wrote:

playeralyalywekl wrote:

Parenting can never be but so hard in any Sims game because children can't really make bad choices. Sure, they can pull pranks, skip school, and stay out after curfew, but that's not really the sort of problematic behavior and attitude that can make parenting hard.

Uh...how don't those attitudes make parenting hard? Preteens and teenagers that do that stuff usually become delinquents, because they find it to be perfectly fine. :?

I'm talking about the Sims game, not RL. In RL yes, those behaviors will get you into trouble. But in the Sims all you get is a slap on the wrist, and your child can still go on to be prefectly fine.

I guess what I should have said is, parenting isn't very hard in the Sims because parents don't have to really invest in their children like real life parents do.

JabuJabule · May 2013

Well hopefully that will change in TS4!

Ladyliberty1301 · May 2013

agreed. Sims children of all ages need to be more rebellious and the parents need to have better punishments. Yes I know not every child is rebellious ( I wasn't) but at some point a child is going to act up and needs to learn their lesson. I think different parenting styles would be cool. Maybe like a trait system but it would only come into play when offspring are in the picture. So your sim couple has their first baby, after the popup screen to name the baby appears a "choose parenting style" popup will appear. It could be a slider from strict to easy going or just icons.

MINEZ · May 2013

cUTE sTUFF!!!

Ladyliberty1301 · May 2013

what about the sling baby carrier that holds the baby or toddler to the back or front of a adult sim? could work for going to community lots or chores around the house

Palomapaloma6 · May 2013

I agree with the 2 new age groups, but if I were to only choose one, it would be pre-teen. Just for fun, me and my friends like to create sims of eachother for our worlds, but we're pre-teens and when we use the child stage, it's a bit insulting. On the other hand, when teen stage is used, I feel like i'm kidding myself. This isn't the main reason, but atleast it counts for something. I'm pretty sure I've spent almost 2 hours reading this forum. Love all the ideas! :-) Wouldn't it be cool if the whole 'crush' idea was used pre-teens could recieve a 'boy-crazy' (or vise-versa) moodlet or notification, similar to the teen rebellion feature? OOH! OOH! What about a sweet 16 celebration in the prime of teen years? That's just me :!:

aprilrose · May 2013

Charrrlotta18 wrote:

:!: Improvements I'd like between child and parent sims in The Sims 4. :!:

I feel like from baby -> the end of childhood, my sims are limited. They can't really do much and sometimes I find them boring to play with. This list is full of ideas about how to make these aging stages a little more interesting. Which leads me on to my next point...

I couldn't agree more with the hundreds of other forum posts about needing the "Child" stage broken up into two separate age groups (suggested by many to be Child - roughly 4yrs - 8yrs, and Pre-Teen - roughly 9-12yrs). For further comments on this check out http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/675926.page
Funnily enough, I didn't remain the same height and didn't look the same etc from ages 4-12. It just doesn't work like that.. :P

So... here are a list of things I think would greatly improve interaction between parents and children.

:arrow: It would be amazing if they could get rid of rabbit holes for schools.

I would love to see what kinds of things they're up to at school... whether they're paying attention in class, getting stuffed into lockers or playing pranks on the teacher with classmates.
:arrow: Just as adult sims have career outfits it would be nice to be able to choose a school uniform for your child sims.

:arrow: Also, What the frick do my sim kids eat when they're at school?

It would be awesome if a parent could make up a school lunch the night before and leave it in the fridge or on the counter, so that the child sim can pick it up and eat their lunch when at school. Or perhaps be given simoleons for their lunch (this could be taken further to include bullies in the schools!) Although the sims is a nicey nicey franchise where not much can go wrong, it would be amusing to have your parents storm down to the school and complain about bullies, perhaps even have the bully sim come over with his/her parent to apologise to your child.

:arrow: I would love my child sims to be more dependent on their parents.

Parenting is way too easy in TS3. I manage easily to have 3/4 kids and pursue an acting career. Is that really plausible for those of us who aren't super human? It would be nice if you could do more for your sim child than expel them from your birth canal and wish them luck. Why can't parents spend half an hour or so plaiting their little girls hair before bed? Or perhaps when a child sim falls ill it would be nice if a parent sim could bring them chicken soup in bed.

:arrow: I don't want a teenager I don't know babysitting my kids! :? :? :?

I have always thought it is rather strange that a couple of parent sims would call up a random babysitting service when they have four perfectly good parents between them and perhaps even brothers or sisters. In real life, surely if you needed a babysitter you would send your kids to their grandparents house (especially if they only live a few houses down the road). I think kids should be able to stay at their families houses. It is strange that a grandmother would ask her grandchild to leave for having a shower and going to sleep in her house. Kids should be able to be babysat by relatives and stay at their houses. This allows parent sims to have a night off without having to desert their house and go out on the town!

:arrow: Why do the children ALWAYS do what they're told!?

I personally feel children need to be a bit more rebellious... most are by nature. Some end up in arguments with other kids, or don't eat their veg, or make their rooms a complete tip, or maybe even drawing on the walls? This should happen and the parent should have a choice over whether to punish their child, perhaps making them clean up or sending them to bed.. or whether to let them off. Perhaps a parent could get a phonecall whilst at the supermarket or at work to tell them that their child has been in a fight or said a swear at school. The parent would then have to go to the school to deal with their child, and this could affect their job performance... another reason to punish. I think this would add a bit more interesting realism to the game.

:arrow: My child is too stupid to play guitar?

It has always frustrated me that my sim children are unable to partake in the activities that the teens can. For instance... why can my sim child manage to paint on an easel, but not manage to pick up some simple songs on a guitar? My sister learnt to play guitar when she was very young, and as the sims game itself tells us "Musical sims often grow up to be child prodigies." I would love my sim children to be able to involve themselves in a few more of the activities offered up to sims in general!

:arrow: What do you think about Parent/Teacher evenings?

I don't know what these are called in different countries but in England mostly we call them Parents Evenings, where the parents attend the school for an hour or two to chat to the child's teachers about their performance etc. This could be interesting if after the meeting sim parents were able to either treat or punish their child depending on how well they have been doing at school.

:arrow: Everyone goes to the same school!

If it were possible, it would be brilliant to have maybe 2/3 new school types in the same world. I know you could potentially in the sims 3 add 3 school rabbitholes to your world and rename them as different schools but it's not the same... I am proposing that we have a (1) Nursery school: Ages 2-4yrs. (2) Infant/Primary school: Ages 5-10yrs. (3) Secondary school: 11yrs-16yrs. Obviously this is something which differs depending on which country you live in... different age groups and names of schools etc, but it would be nice to have different schools for different ages. That way (if they still include moodlets) it would be possible to have moodlets such as "Nervous about starting at new school -10" or "Can't wait for the new school year +10".

So... These are just a few of my ideas, I have a lot more but want to see what everyone thinks of these first.

:roll: If you don't like my ideas, please tell me why and explain how you would do it differently? :roll:

:shock: Do you care about child/parent relationships in your games?
:shock: Do you usually play with child sims or just adults/young adults?
:shock: Do you feel I've addressed some key faults in parenting with The sims 3?

I may be getting ahead of myself thinking about all the elements of the Sims 4, but I'm rather excited and hope they can meet some of my high expectations! Thanks for reading!

I love this thread! I personally agree that from baby stage - teen stage is pretty boring. I care about children/parent relationships in my game and I think there should be more interaction between them. I also feel like the lack of objects/activities for toddler - teen needs an improvement. I agree that there should be more than one school, no rabbitholes, packed lunches or allowances for lunch, ability to send young sim to another family members house if necessary or even daycare, punishment for acting out and ability to use musical instruments. I hate having to wait till my sim is a teen to use instruments, like kids in real like don't play instruments?!

I feel like there were more interactions between parent and toddler in TS2, i seriously miss when we could actually bathe our tots

lexilou23 · May 2013

YorkieGirl4 wrote:

Has somebody already mentioned daycare? I don't like the babysitters, when my parents go to work I'd love an option to take babies, toddlers, and children to a daycare either at the school or elsewhere and set the time to pick them up at.

I like that idea. It can be an interactive lot too, so your toddler or child can interact with other kids in the daycare.

Oh, and while we're looking and the fact the children can make relationships on Sims, can we look at the INABILITY TO LEARN THE CHARISMA SKILL?

Even if you have the charismatic trait, and the fast-learner lifetime happiness, there is no longer skill to work for than charisma. I would love to be able to start my Sims at an earlier age so I don't have to spend all of my teenage years talking in a mirror or reading in a book.

Janilew · May 2013

I love and agree with all of these ideas. Has anyone ever noticed, that sim kids can ride a bike at night through traffic and get hit by countless number of cars, but they are not old enough to pick up their laundry? I always thought that was so funny.

Ladyliberty1301 · May 2013

I want a "learn to ride bike" for children similar to the teen "learn to drive" skill. Learning to ride a bike is a major milestone for RL kindergarteners, why do they suddenly know how to ride a bike but have to learn other things.

Ladyliberty1301 · July 2013

also community playgrounds with monkey bars and everything.

Learn to swim - for babies on up.

would love a "ride (insert name of dog)" for a toddler - only if the dog is a large breed dog.

It would be cute too if toddlers,babies and children could sit on the counters in the kitchen and bathroom.

What about minor cuts and scrapes, where parents have to clean it and put a band aid on it?

carpools - parents take child to school and sometimes pick up kids friends on the way.

zahcookiemonster · July 2013

I don't disagree with even ONE of your ideas! They are all great! I wish that parenting had more to it in this game. It's the number one reason why I play Sims!

Ladyliberty1301 · July 2013

does anyone know if there is a parenting in sims4 petition out with these ideas?

liloulove2012 · July 2013

I think those are great ideas and i also think kids should have vacation for like maybe 14 sim days so then u can really know that ur sim is going to another grade and also it would be cool if the parents would go shopping for school supplies and stuff

Rinchan7 · July 2013

I full-heartily (sp?) agree with some of this but I wonder if the kid has culinary skills or is a teen they could make their own lunch? And maybe bring breakfast to school either if they are a genius and have 7:30am classes (this is called 'A' period where I'm from) and if a diner or supermarket/type of store is nearby by maybe teens can go out to lunch during lunch period, if the place is far, they better drive or have a fast bike (animations of getting in\out of cars and bike please)

I also agree especially when we get seasons and weather, if the parent has a car and has enough time before work (if not, drop off early) or if it is snowing or raining like a storm, they could arrange to drop off kids at school and possibly pick them up (especially with the after school activity) also, instead of having the bus come to your house, how about there are designate locations where the bus comes (a bus stop actually) where all the kids/teens in that side of the block go in order to be picked up and dropped off when school is over (of course they'll have to fix the whole "large group of sims means no one gets in" thing) and if the parent has a nurturing or protective trait, they may want to see the kid off to make sure they get on the bus (the kid could get embarrassed sometimes)

A designate bus stop would mean you don't have to call to cancel the bus because other kids would have to take it if they are not being driven. However, if your sim lives far from the school and/or bus stop and can't drop off/pick up kid(s) for any reason, they could (or all sims could just in case) call or email to arrange for the bus to come to their house to pick up/drop off kids (of course if the kids miss the bus when they live that far away...parents aren't gonna be happy)

MunnieSims · July 2013

So i read over this whole thread and I love all the ideas. The sims is supposed to be a life simulator game. The one thing that has irked me about the sims is the family interactions. I read in another thread about maybe EA could implement a calender system of some sort. I think this would be awesome for some family interactions. Like you could set tuesday as family game night or friday everyone sits down to a home cooked meal.

I also really hope they make cell phones something you can purchase so all the sims don't automatically have cell phones. I think this would help make the home phones useful. (It would be fun if we had answering machines that way if the phone rings and we aren't home we can check messages to see who called, etc.)

I also wish the adoption was better. I wish the children adoption was like the pet adoption, in regards to actually being able to see a picture of the child your adopting, traits, gender and maybe if sims from your family are taken away they could appear in the adoption panel thingy. It would also be kinda cute if each of the kids had a small description for what type of family they would want. (this could be randomly generated)

I think sibling rivalry would be fun. Like instead of your kids becoming BFFs they could be come rivals. Though it doesn't mean the relationship would be bad, i just want an option for my kids to be more rivals the friends. :P Also maybe if they are rivals they will play more tricks on each other and try to out do each other.

I guess the last thing i can think of at the moment is more kids toys and decorations. I just feel at times the sims 3 lacked in themes for kids rooms. I know in real life my younger sister ( she is 18 and I am 20) has books scattered all over her room and a bookcase filled with books and other nick knacks. Also she hates the color pink. So i wish we could create kids/teens rooms to be more their taste and actually have them react to how it is. Example: Neat teenager Julie loves the color green. If she enters her room and it's dirty she immediately starts to clean it or she gets a moodlet or whatever saying "My room is a pigsty -10" or "My room is spotless +15" If her room is mostly the color she likes maybe a moodlet "My favorite color! +20" or if it isn't "It needs more (insert favorite color) -20"

Also in conjunction with more kids room decorations being able to actually set a room as a child's room would be nice. I mean i know in the sims 3 you can lock the door but that gets frustrating to do after a while.

My really last thing would have to be family portraits or photos. Like with each new addition to the family our sims might roll the wish to have a family photo done. If you decide to do a family photo everyone would change to their formal wear and then you could choose from some poses of how you want the family to look. Maybe you could also choose the background.

~Munnie

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Sims 4 Mums and Dads! Parenting in the new Sims game...

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