Baby Boomer 2019

[Deklitch]

This was my best baby boomer attempt. Of course, the last one I tried was a Sims 3 one and in that one I got myself addicted to the baby swings et al which weren't allowed for challenges. So didn't go too well. I went into this one without knowing much about completing aspirations, or nooboos, or adopting, or school or much of anything else. It was going to be a learning curve for me so I practised and practised and practised some more and annoyed our very very extremely patient challenge team with questions that I'm sure must have seemed inane to them, but they answered them for me and I noticed that the answers they gave me became added as rules additions, including when I asked if a parent was a young adult at the end of the game and had completed a unique aspiration and skill, if I could move them out for the extra points. I was told no.

aha! So a son as a father of a third generation sim WILL work for big happy family. I had no idea if the grandkids had to be in the household or not and never tried it beforehand.

I decided to go for an 'outdoor living' family, I went for Newcrest as my homelot, and chose the smallest lot I could so I could start off with as much money as possible. I put a spa down near them.

During practices I tried a variety of different 'floorplans' for my house and settled on I liked - 6 of the smaller tents, potties, indoor toilets and showers (3 of each) two picnic tables, one two square tables (computer on each end of that one) and toddler toys - wabbit pads and so forth. I bypassed high chairs.

I used the spa ONCE. I kept on forgetting about it. Also, I was frightened the kids would be taken from Mr and Mrs Andreas if I sent the parents there with little ones behind.

Things I discovered (mostly through accident)
- it takes approximately 7 cuddles from each parent, a change of nappy AND a bottle/breast feed for nooboos to become good friends with each parent.
- you can reuse the birthday cake - if you re-add the candles before anyone takes a slice.
- toddlers doing the grand tour of the 'house' pointing to everything and saying "what's that" works both their thinking and movement skill
- some of the children seemed to start school at a B/Part Time job with a promotion.
- nerd brain and computer brain are awesome aspirations to complete
- my cunning plan for one of the kids to complete leader of the pack worked a charm - none of the other kids went into that aspiration and when he got up to the level to lead a club with 8 members, father transferred leadership to him; he was the one that took longer to complete his skill (charisma) than his aspiration
- I really like the freelancer programming 'career'; but unless you watch carefully, sims can get distracted by their kids/siblings
- there are probably many many more, but those are all I can recall at the moment
- from my childhood, jungle gyms = monkey bars. It took me considerable time and frustration to work out that they are now considered two different things! Of course, had I read the Carls Sims 4 forums, I could have saved myself time and hair.

Problems I ran into
- musical genius and best selling author took me a long time to complete, so long that offspring 3 and 4 were out of the house and on their own before offspring 3 and 4 were close to finishing their aspirations (4 did computer whiz and 3 did painter extraordinaire). 1 did best selling author, 2 did musical genius, 3 did painter extraordinaire, 4 did computer whiz, order they left were 3, 4, 1, 2.
- child 7 as a teen steadfastly refused to get a B in high school school (of course, I discovered on the last Saturday of the challenge file that I hadn't changed one of the lot traits to "good schools" so that was on the watcher
- easy to get distracted by the cute toddler animations
- toddlers refusing to do things that I as their 'merciful' watcher know is best for them
- It took me until Friday of week 3 before I had the first of my offspring ready to move out and after that I had 3 more adoptions, 1 just before the end of week 3, and 2 half way through week 4. By the time that child 6 had moved out (Thursday week 4) I knew I didn't have the time for another pregnancy and I had already done my two adoptions in week 4 (I even contact the team at one stage and asked if it was 2 adoptions a week, and if you didn't adopt the two of them by the end of that week, you lost the adoptions, or if you could save them up, they confirmed it was use them or lose them by the end of each week). I should have done the try for baby in week 4 when I adopted child 7 and did the adoption later.

When I was really struggling with the musical genius aspiration, I thought "I know, I'll go for mansion baron for her" which was ... a mistake. I also know I lost my focus a bit in week 4. I want to give it another go, just at my own pace.

I was very happy with my final score. 6 moved out was 6 more than I expected. I actually was expecting that I'd have a child taken away due to neglect, when in fact the only ones I truly neglected were daddykins and mumsy (not their real names which were Tati and Danae Andreas, and the children in order were Evan, Camille, Arnold, Ricky, Bree, Kaimin, Rae, Wilmot and Sasha. All names that meant Strong and/or Brave.

[Rainbow Dash]

RainbowDash,it's sad that you din't manage to end up on time. 69 points is an impressive score for 3 weeks! I had 54 points at the end of week 3 and finally scored 77 points.

Thanks @Elinoee, I only managed it because I saved a few easy aspirations and skills for last. At the end, I played for four days straight (Real time), broke down and contacted @Metropolis Man in a panic, lol. This challenge was the hardest I've ever done and only being able to play for half of it made it that much more stressful, but I survived ... somehow! However, I nearly had kittens when my Sim popped out triplets!

Pregnancy: My Sims never had a single birth, they had one set of triplets four sets of twins and adopted four kids. The mother always had a fertile massage both parents had the fertile trait and I used On A Leyline trait and Elixir of Fertility. She always took pregnancy tests too.

Toddlers: Parents skilled them all up and gave them a second wind to help with energy, sometimes they would nap in high chairs and they ate fresh produce for quick meals and mood boosts. They watched Sims to raise thinking quickly and were energized to boost movement.

Children: All kids did Rambunctious Scamp as it's the fastest aspiration, I kept them energized with crystals and brisk showers to raise the skill faster. Wishing well often gave them grade promotions and parents helped with homework.

Teens: Used the wishing well for quick grade promotions, then got a job instantly at second level then quit.

I tried to do aspirations that could be done quickly, avoiding those that needed to max a career or anything else I thought would take too long. I did a lot of minor skills and had a club running the whole time that had Rally The Troops and boosts for homework plus every skill and emotion to get things done quicker. I used lot traits and rewards to help too, toggling through aspirations for each Sim to gain fast satisfaction while being careful not to max any. I also made sure my Sims were in the right emotion for every skill, this was done through clubs and paintings mostly. I did the following aspirations and skills:

Serial romantic
Beach life
Angling ace
Outdoor Enthusiast
Archaeological scholar
Jungle explorer
Curator
Chief of mischief
Joke star
Mansion baron
Bodybuilder

Dancing
Photography
Fishing
Herbalism
Archaeology
Selvadoradian culture
Singing
Mischief
Comedy
Bowling
Fitness

I used the treasures found in the jungle, paintings, camping mascots and gardening to make the money for Mansion Baron, I had Sims working on Fabulously Wealthy, Mixology (Aspiration and skill) and Media production before I ran out of time. Before kids moved out, they spent their satisfaction on moodlet solvers which were shared among remaining Sims so they didn't have to worry about needs.

Big mistakes were made, I forgot to have the parents get to know their grandchildren or to get one of their kids married so Big Happy Family was never completed. Right at the end of the challenge I equipped the Dog Hangout lot trait in the hopes to train some pooches, but they took over a day to show up, so I didn't get time to do that skill. The wishing well refused to give my Sim in the culinary career the last promotion he needed to finish his aspiration, so he was stuck at home when the challenge ended.

I'm glad I did this challenge, it's a great learning curve, I just wish I'd had more time with it and didn't have to frantically scramble at the end, I think a more relaxed pace would have made this challenge more enjoyable for me, but luck was not on my side. Maybe next time things will be better! 

[coolsim9999999]

Congrats @GlazeyLady

Great job, Lena!

Wow that was so close.

Great strategies.

[Deklitch]

Thanks for sharing your strategies folks. I'm keen to learn and to practice, but I did hope you could answer some questions to help me become less anxious and more skilled in playing.

1 Wishing Well and Crystals

When I find crystals I see it saying something about a celestial crown. Does that involve space travel?

The wish well came with romantic gardens or something? I take it isn't considered overpowering in the game like the sims 3 version?

2 Secondly aspirations
Any advice for me on the musical genius and the best selling author aspirations? I found out the hints about the levels required in the musical genius through research, but the licensing didn't seem to happen when the instructions said they were meant to for me.

I found out about the various emotions needed for various things and tried my best to make sure my offspring were in the correct emotional state for the task they were completing, but they just took forever. Should I have not tried to complete those aspirations in this sort of challenge?

How does the 'violin trick' work for mansion baron? Are they designed to increase the value of the house or to meet the other requirement for one of the baron mansion aspiration levels? I just didn't have the money to be able to buy enough for value and I had paintings stored from the painter extraordinaire offspring which I used as the artwork. When I got to the one about the windows, I had no trouble with having enough windows, it was the house value I struggled with. What should I be doing with this?

3 School Grades/Teen Jobs
What would I have do to have some of my sims seem to start grade school and high school at B and others at C? Also, in their part time jobs some started at level 1 and some at level 2 of a part time job? I did have a couple that managed to get a positive trait in high school, which I think involved them brushing their teeth multiple times in a row ... many many times in a row. But I'm kind of at a loss to know what I did differently between the sims from toddlerhood into childhood and childhood into teenager hood.

4 Besties
I did my best to keep my sims who were adopted/birthed together (or almost together) to age up together. As toddlers/children I tried to keep them with their twin and had them do friendly interactions with each other to have them at bestie level at high school so I could have them meet that immediately. There was one I adopted as a single, and I was going to have her become besties with a parent. I think I saw the comment from someone, each of their offspring became besties with a parent. I was going to do that at one stage, but in reading notes about becoming besties, I saw comments about that people could only have one bestie at a time, and it was reading as though it took a long time/great deal of effort to remove that sim a s a bestie and have a different one as bestie. Is that the case, or did I misunderstand that?

5 Stopping sims working on other skills
Should I have given my writer/programmer/video game offspring sims portable computers for their skills instead of desktop computers which others often sat down and used instead of their assigned skills? Also, some of them, just seemed to refuse to do their assigned skills. Any advice on those things? Should I have tried to line up skills needing the same emotional state for my pairs to work on better, or something?

[Rainbow Dash]

When I find crystals I see it saying something about a celestial crown. Does that involve space travel?

I don't know much about the Celestial Crown, having never used it myself, only that it came with Get Famous, I don't think it involves space travel. When I said I used crystals to inspire certain emotions, I meant I just placed the raw crystals my Sim dug up and enabled the aura.

The wish well came with romantic gardens or something? I take it isn't considered overpowering in the game like the sims 3 version?

Yes, the Wishing Well was included in the Romantic Gardens stuff pack, one of my personal favourites. As for it being overpowering, not really, as it can backfire horribly so it's very much a use at your own peril object, lol. Carl wrote a guide on it, which is found in the Romantic Garden guide, it lists all the possible outcomes, it's a good read if you want to get an idea of what it's like. (I don't remember what the Sims 3 Wishing Well was like so I can't compare).

I found out about the various emotions needed for various things and tried my best to make sure my offspring were in the correct emotional state for the task they were completing, but they just took forever. Should I have not tried to complete those aspirations in this sort of challenge?

I'm not sure what you mean, what aspirations are you referring to? When you refer to the tasks your Sims were working on, do you mean skills or milestones?

How does the 'violin trick' work for mansion baron? Are they designed to increase the value of the house or to meet the other requirement for one of the baron mansion aspiration levels? I just didn't have the money to be able to buy enough for value and I had paintings stored from the painter extraordinaire offspring which I used as the artwork. When I got to the one about the windows, I had no trouble with having enough windows, it was the house value I struggled with. What should I be doing with this?

Hmmm, @GlazeyLady probably knows more about this than I do but any expensive item will raise the value of a house and there's a $15000 violin you can buy to help this along, you do need to go back into live mode after placing them. Of course you'll need enough money to buy them in the first place, I sold most of the paintings my Sim painted and just bought them in buy mode for that part of the aspiration. I made money with painting, gardening and crafting Camping Mascots to raise the cash for all those violins. Not sure if anything I said here helped lol.

3 School Grades/Teen Jobs
What would I have do to have some of my sims seem to start grade school and high school at B and others at C? Also, in their part time jobs some started at level 1 and some at level 2 of a part time job? I did have a couple that managed to get a positive trait in high school, which I think involved them brushing their teeth multiple times in a row ... many many times in a row. But I'm kind of at a loss to know what I did differently between the sims from toddlerhood into childhood and childhood into teenager hood.

Most of the time I had the kids and teens make a $5000 donation to the Wishing Well and wish for better grades in the hopes of getting a grade promotion quickly. If they didn't get it I had them do their homework and raise a skill to level 2, I used a homework club boost and had the parents help with this. Sending them to school in a focused mood and making them study hard helps too, I used a quick Ponder Moves or Focused Club Boost to achieve this. I always made sure my teens were at B students before they got a part time job, that way they always started at level 2 of the career.

5 Stopping sims working on other skills
Should I have given my writer/programmer/video game offspring sims portable computers for their skills instead of desktop computers which others often sat down and used instead of their assigned skills? Also, some of them, just seemed to refuse to do their assigned skills. Any advice on those things? Should I have tried to line up skills needing the same emotional state for my pairs to work on better, or something?

They shouldn't be refusing, are you sure there was nothing blocking their path, no locked doors? Sims will refuse to work on skills if their needs are too low, so you need to take care of that first. When my Sims try to use an object I don't want them to, such playing a video game on the computer instead of painting, I just take the offending object and stick it in the family inventory, can't use it if it's not there. I used Clubs and influence to encourage my Sims to stay on track, sometimes I even took to locking them in rooms, lol.

I only answered what I could on the topics I'm not that knowledgeable on, I mostly chose the ones I knew something about hope it helps you somewhat.

[Deklitch]

When I find crystals I see it saying something about a celestial crown. Does that involve space travel?

I don't know much about the Celestial Crown, having never used it myself, only that it came with Get Famous, I don't think it involves space travel. When I said I used crystals to inspire certain emotions, I meant I just placed the raw crystals my Sim dug up and enabled the aura.

I get it now. So they work like mysim trophies in that way.

The wish well came with romantic gardens or something? I take it isn't considered overpowering in the game like the sims 3 version?

Yes, the Wishing Well was included in the Romantic Gardens stuff pack, one of my personal favourites. As for it being overpowering, not really, as it can backfire horribly so it's very much a use at your own peril object, lol. Carl wrote a guide on it, which is found in the Romantic Garden guide, it lists all the possible outcomes, it's a good read if you want to get an idea of what it's like. (I don't remember what the Sims 3 Wishing Well was like so I can't compare).

Thanks and no problem. The Sims 3 one was premium content that came with Hidden Springs. It could make sims much younger on a successful use and aged them considerably on an unsuccessful use. If I remember rightly, it was written into the backstory of some of the sims there that they had unsuccessful uses of the Sims 3 wishing well.

I found out about the various emotions needed for various things and tried my best to make sure my offspring were in the correct emotional state for the task they were completing, but they just took forever. Should I have not tried to complete those aspirations in this sort of challenge?

I'm not sure what you mean, what aspirations are you referring to? When you refer to the tasks your Sims were working on, do you mean skills or milestones?

Milestones, I think. The things like Write X Songs or Licence X Songs or Play Video Games for X hours while focused or fish in three different locations.

The adult aspirations I completed were Best Selling Author, Musical Genius, Painter Extraordinaire, Computer Whiz, Nerd Brain and Leader of the Pack. My 7th one was going to be Angling Ace. Best Selling Author and Musical Genius both seemed to take a long time to complete. Painter Extraordinaire took much less time for me, as did Leader of the Pack. Computer Whiz and Nerd Brain were quicker for me than Best Selling Author and Musical Genius. What I guess I'm asking is if you have two sims, and both are needing to complete an aspiration, is it best to have them doing aspirations that are from the same category eg Nerd Brain and Computer Whiz rather than Computer Whiz and Painter Extraordinaire? Or doesn't it really matter? Is it better to have them working on skills and aspiration milestones that require the same emotional moods, or doesn't it really matter? Are there some that are better to be done before other ones?

How does the 'violin trick' work for mansion baron? Are they designed to increase the value of the house or to meet the other requirement for one of the baron mansion aspiration levels? I just didn't have the money to be able to buy enough for value and I had paintings stored from the painter extraordinaire offspring which I used as the artwork. When I got to the one about the windows, I had no trouble with having enough windows, it was the house value I struggled with. What should I be doing with this?

Hmmm, @GlazeyLady probably knows more about this than I do but any expensive item will raise the value of a house and there's a $15000 violin you can buy to help this along, you do need to go back into live mode after placing them. Of course you'll need enough money to buy them in the first place, I sold most of the paintings my Sim painted and just bought them in buy mode for that part of the aspiration. I made money with painting, gardening and crafting Camping Mascots to raise the cash for all those violins. Not sure if anything I said here helped lol.

Yes, it all helped a lot. So I was kind of on the right track then. I just really needed more money to be able to afford the violins to put up the value of the house.

Crafting camping mascots, was that from the wood working table?

3 School Grades/Teen Jobs
What would I have done to have some of my sims seem to start grade school and high school at B and others at C? Also, in their part time jobs some started at level 1 and some at level 2 of a part time job? I did have a couple that managed to get a positive trait in high school, which I think involved them brushing their teeth multiple times in a row ... many many times in a row. But I'm kind of at a loss to know what I did differently between the sims from toddlerhood into childhood and childhood into teenager hood.

Most of the time I had the kids and teens make a $5000 donation to the Wishing Well and wish for better grades in the hopes of getting a grade promotion quickly. If they didn't get it I had them do their homework and raise a skill to level 2, I used a homework club boost and had the parents help with this. Sending them to school in a focused mood and making them study hard helps too, I used a quick Ponder Moves or Focused Club Boost to achieve this. I always made sure my teens were at B students before they got a part time job, that way they always started at level 2 of the career.

That explains it then, thanks for the tips about focused mood and B students before part time jobs. That must have been what I did, without knowing it. Does the number of skills that toddlers max or reach level 3 on have an influence on starting school grades? Or just the starting level of childhood skills?

5 Stopping sims working on other skills
Should I have given my writer/programmer/video game offspring sims portable computers for their skills instead of desktop computers which others often sat down and used instead of their assigned skills? Also, some of them, just seemed to refuse to do their assigned skills. Any advice on those things? Should I have tried to line up skills needing the same emotional state for my pairs to work on better, or something?

They shouldn't be refusing, are you sure there was nothing blocking their path, no locked doors? Sims will refuse to work on skills if their needs are too low, so you need to take care of that first. When my Sims try to use an object I don't want them to, such playing a video game on the computer instead of painting, I just take the offending object and stick it in the family inventory, can't use it if it's not there. I used Clubs and influence to encourage my Sims to stay on track, sometimes I even took to locking them in rooms, lol.

I would have the music sim start playing the guitar. She had the guitar in her inventory or it was on its stand. She would actually pick it up and start playing. I would then go and check whether the toddlers were up and about yet and get the message that Music Sim has picked up a level in writing and is now level 1. Sure enough, when I returned, she was at one of the computers, typing away. There was nothing blocking her path to using the guitar, the only thing I had in her actions queue was playing the guitar, but she wouldn't play it for long before going to another skill. And by 'not long' I mean 5-10 seconds of real time.

I only answered what I could on the topics I'm not that knowledgeable on, I mostly chose the ones I knew something about hope it helps you somewhat.

Thanks @Rainbow Dash it helps enormously. Crystals, Wishing Well use, the tips around skills and part time jobs, and the suggestions on getting the sims to follow my instructions on skilling are all very helpful.

[Rainbow Dash]

Milestones, I think. The things like Write X Songs or Licence X Songs or Play Video Games for X hours while focused or fish in three different locations.

The adult aspirations I completed were Best Selling Author, Musical Genius, Painter Extraordinaire, Computer Whiz, Nerd Brain and Leader of the Pack. My 7th one was going to be Angling Ace. Best Selling Author and Musical Genius both seemed to take a long time to complete. Painter Extraordinaire took much less time for me, as did Leader of the Pack. Computer Whiz and Nerd Brain were quicker for me than Best Selling Author and Musical Genius. What I guess I'm asking is if you have two sims, and both are needing to complete an aspiration, is it best to have them doing aspirations that are from the same category eg Nerd Brain and Computer Whiz rather than Computer Whiz and Painter Extraordinaire? Or doesn't it really matter? Is it better to have them working on skills and aspiration milestones that require the same emotional moods, or doesn't it really matter? Are there some that are better to be done before other ones?

That's a tough question to answer, I guess it depends on your style of gameplay, there's nothing wrong with doing milestones or aspirations outside your main one, it can be a good way to rack up some quick satisfaction. I suppose it depends on if you want to take the time to do that or not, personally I like to try and pick aspirations and skills I think go together but that's just me. Just do what you think is the best option for you in this case. Some aspirations can be good to do early, such as Serial Romantic to provide grandkids later down the line but it depends on what strategy you are going for. Best Selling Author and Musical Genius do take a long time, it takes a while to write a book and I think there is quite a long cooldown between licensing songs. @Metropolis Man is the best one to talk to about the music skill, I believe he wrote a guide on it.

I would have the music sim start playing the guitar. She had the guitar in her inventory or it was on its stand. She would actually pick it up and start playing. I would then go and check whether the toddlers were up and about yet and get the message that Music Sim has picked up a level in writing and is now level 1. Sure enough, when I returned, she was at one of the computers, typing away. There was nothing blocking her path to using the guitar, the only thing I had in her actions queue was playing the guitar, but she wouldn't play it for long before going to another skill. And by 'not long' I mean 5-10 seconds of real time.

Was she playing songs? They only last a short while and the Sim stops playing once the song ends, best thing to do is to queue it up over and over again and lock her in a room with nothing but the guitar, lol.

[GlazeyLady]

Thanks for sharing your strategies folks. I'm keen to learn and to practice, but I did hope you could answer some questions to help me become less anxious and more skilled in playing.

1 Wishing Well and Crystals

When I find crystals I see it saying something about a celestial crown. Does that involve space travel?

The wish well came with romantic gardens or something? I take it isn't considered overpowering in the game like the sims 3 version?

You can buy the Celestial Crown in buy mode, insert a crystal, and wear it - different crystals have different effects - they can give a good boost to specific emotions, etc.  Carl's guide provides good information about this - look under Guides > Expansions > Get Famous - there's a link at the beginning of that article to the page on the Celestial Crown.  I actually haven't used it much myself.

I've had really good results with the wishing well - if the sim's needs are up, a $5000 donation is given, and the requirements for the advancement are met, a good result (green or white light) seems to happen more.  Also, the cooldown is 8 hours, so if they don't get a good response, have them wish again as soon as the cooldown is over.

2 Secondly aspirations
Any advice for me on the musical genius and the best selling author aspirations? I found out the hints about the levels required in the musical genius through research, but the licensing didn't seem to happen when the instructions said they were meant to for me.

I found out about the various emotions needed for various things and tried my best to make sure my offspring were in the correct emotional state for the task they were completing, but they just took forever. Should I have not tried to complete those aspirations in this sort of challenge?

Writing songs takes a really long time, and you have to spend a lot of hours on the violin.  But all the hours count, so play constantly even before you get to that level of the aspiration.  As for licensing, you can only do that once a week, so all your money has to come from that first song - takes 2-3 days.  So, yes, this is one of the longer aspirations.

How does the 'violin trick' work for mansion baron? Are they designed to increase the value of the house or to meet the other requirement for one of the baron mansion aspiration levels? I just didn't have the money to be able to buy enough for value and I had paintings stored from the painter extraordinaire offspring which I used as the artwork. When I got to the one about the windows, I had no trouble with having enough windows, it was the house value I struggled with. What should I be doing with this?

Any expensive item can be purchased and stuck on the lot to raise the value - the violin is a popular one, as is the suit of armor - I usually build a basement and stick a bunch of violins down there.  But there is a violin trick for Fabulously Wealthy - first you do have to raise a good amount of money (I usually do this through making and selling plasma packs, because that's "free" from a time perspective - you have to skill up a sim in Vampire Lore to (I think) level 4, but then you pause the game, buy an aquarium, stock it with 6 guppies, move them to inventory, create plasma packs from then, and sell them on your inventory tab - all while the game is on pause.  This is a VERY TEDIOUS way to make money, but you can do it for as long as you can stand to do it without going crazy - so it's essentially unlimited funds.  But, again, VERY TEDIOUS.)  Once you have a bunch of money, you can buy as many $15,000 violins as you can afford, and sell them through personal inventory - this counts as "money earned" for purposes of Fabulously Wealthy (selling the plasma packs also counts as money earned).  The thing about the violins, though, is that you lose money on that due to depreciation.  So, if you already have a ton of money (maybe from another sim finishing Fabulously Wealthy) and can afford the depreciation, you can use this to get Fabulously Wealthy for another sim.

3 School Grades/Teen Jobs
What would I have do to have some of my sims seem to start grade school and high school at B and others at C? Also, in their part time jobs some started at level 1 and some at level 2 of a part time job? I did have a couple that managed to get a positive trait in high school, which I think involved them brushing their teeth multiple times in a row ... many many times in a row. But I'm kind of at a loss to know what I did differently between the sims from toddlerhood into childhood and childhood into teenager hood.

A child who has an A at school will age up with a B in high school right off the bat, and will get any teen job at level 2. So if you can get an A from the wishing well for a child sim, then 2 of the 3 teen requirements are met as soon as they age up.  If they were taught toddler skills by a parent, given that they were Good Friends as babies, it's likely that the relationship is high enough with at least one parent to immediately become good friends.  None of my Baby Boomer sims were teens for more than a few hours at most - just long enough to make besties with a parent and get a job.

[LenaLJ]

I am amazed who similiar our strategies where her @GlazeyLady
One major thing i did different through the whole challenge was to only have my children go to a B in school.
That was enough to have them get the level 2 in their teen career, and I could start their aspirations while they got their grade, either by attending school or wishing well if we where lucky.

And then I never liked playing with the plasma creation to get money, neither did I like to do it by taking pictures.
So my mother was painting over and over again to raise their funds.