Teaching "toddler skills" to a non-controlled toddler

[cathyknits]

In my present game, one of the male Sims in my household had a baby with someone not in the household, and unfortunately there isn't room to move mom and baby in. When the baby aged up to toddler, my Sim rolled a wish to teach the toddler to walk, and the interaction "Teach To Walk" was there, and it went through the "teach to walk" animation - but the toddler didn't get a progress bar. I kept it up for quite a while without fulfilling the wish, but it might not have quite been long enough.

Is the toddler actually learning the skill, or is the poor guy at the mercy of his townie relatives? I'd be annoyed if I made the effort to provide good parenting, and the kid still ended up an evil kleptomaniac...

[Hosfac]

Evil kleptomaniacs are sims too, ya know! 

I'm not totally sure how that works with toddlers, but I do know that if you tutor a non-controlled child it actually affects his grades.  But training a child in no way ensures that he or she will end up with "good" traits.  All it does is increase the chances that you'll get to pick the trait upon aging up.  But since you're not controlling him, the kid is going to end up with whatever traits the game feels like giving him.  So, theoretically:  you could teach the toddler to walk, talk and use the potty chair, and he could still end up an evil kleptomaniac.

[Pam]

Hosfac is right.  However, you can still fulfill the wish to teach the toddler to walk if you stay with it long enough.  It's hard to tell with no progress bar, but it will come if you're persistent.

[cathyknits]

Hrm. I did get the skill taught - yay for walking toddlers, and now I'm starting on talking just to build the relationship. It took a lot longer than I thought, but it's possible the kid was in a lousy mood.

I was under the impression, though, that when the game assigned a trait, it picked randomly from different lists depending on just how badly the kid was treated  - i.e. if you did just enough to keep the social worker at bay, you'd probably get a "really bad" trait, and if you got two-and-a-half of the three skills taught or maintained a B average in school, you'd probably get something "not-so-bad".

Unfortunately this is not the easiest thing to test experimentally - personally, I think toddler sims are up there with baby penguins on the cute scale, but raising a couple hundred of them to adults to see what traits they get randomly assigned might change my opinion there. (OTOH an experimental house with two parents and 6 toddlers out of CAS might get me a nice mix of "levels of neglect"...)

[Hosfac]

I'm not totally sure how the game could keep track of how well a toddler is treated.  I know that children and teens have their progress in school to gauge the quality of their upbringing, and for teens at least, the game suggests that if he or she maintains failing grades, their "personality will change forever."  I've never actually allowed this to happen, however, so I don't know exactly what that means.

[cathyknits]

Combination of "were the toddler's needs met" and "did the toddler get taught to walk/talk/potty"? The game tracks mom's needs during a pregnancy, for certain. I generally parent my toddlers pretty well, so it's never really come up, but I figured it would explain a higher number of Insane and Evil high school students and young adults than would normally come up randomly...

[Hosfac]

The game tracks mom's needs during a pregnancy, for certain.

I don't think it "tracks her mood" as such.  It's more of a running event tally, and good moods are only part of it.  I usually keep expecting mothers-to-be in really good moods, but without doing other things, like reading pregnancy books and/or going for medical advice, I rarely get to choose both traits.

[Schipperke]

I usually keep expecting mothers-to-be in really good moods, but without doing other things, like reading pregnancy books and/or going for medical advice, I rarely get to choose both traits.

Really?  That's very interesting.  I don't actually play families very often, but when I do I've always been able to choose both traits.  And that's just from keeping the mother in a good mood - I've never had her seek medical advice, and don't always bother with the pregnancy books.  Maybe I've just been lucky.

[Hosfac]

Really?  That's very interesting.  I don't actually play families very often, but when I do I've always been able to choose both traits.  And that's just from keeping the mother in a good mood - I've never had her seek medical advice, and don't always bother with the pregnancy books.  Maybe I've just been lucky.

Typically, I end up getting to choose only one of the two traits just by trying to keep the mother in a good mood, but I have been able to choose both on occasion without reading the books, too.  From what I can tell there is a random factor involved that is weighted by what you do.  But any time I have kept her mood up and read one of the two available books, I've always been able to choose both.  Plus, the only time I sought out medical advice I was able to choose both traits without reading any books.  So really it doesn't take a lot of extra effort to guarantee your choice of both traits.

[Pam]

The only medical advice I'm aware of is to determine the gender.  It wouldn't have an effect on the mother's mood.  The pregnancy books only grant the wish to read one.  It doesn't do anything else for the pregnancy.  Aside from just keeping her in a good mood, it's critical that she get enough rest.  That means her energy must never drop to yellow or red.  If you do everything else perfectly, but she gets too tired, you'll loose the chance to pick one of the traits.

As for "changing their lives forever" by not going to school, the game is exaggerating for dramatic effect.  All that happens is that you don't get to choose the trait upon aging up.  Granted, that's a pretty big thing, but at the time, I was playing a legacy and couldn't pick the traits anyway.  It didn't matter if my kids went to school or not.  I don't think the game follows any procedures for choosing traits.  Either you get to choose the trait or you don't.  And if you don't, the computer picks one at random.  I've had it assign both good and bad traits.  Again, playing a legacy, I could never choose traits and I got just as many good ones as bad ones, no matter how I raised the child.

[Hosfac]

The only medical advice I'm aware of is to determine the gender.  It wouldn't have an effect on the mother's mood.  The pregnancy books only grant the wish to read one.  It doesn't do anything else for the pregnancy.  Aside from just keeping her in a good mood, it's critical that she get enough rest.  That means her energy must never drop to yellow or red.  If you do everything else perfectly, but she gets too tired, you'll loose the chance to pick one of the traits.

When a sim is pregnant, an option opens up on the pie menu for the hospital for her to "Get Medical Advice," or something to that extent.  I'm not totally sure what it does, but I had assumed that it did the same thing as reading a pregnancy book (and in light of the information you gave, perhaps it does lol).  I did go once, and got charged something like $200 for the visit.  I got to pick both traits for the child, but I suppose it could be coincidental.

I wonder what that does now.  I'm going to have to search it out.

Edit:  From what I read, getting medical advice from the hospital and reading pregnancy books adds to her "pregnancy mood" (a term I saw pop up a couple of times).  I'm assuming that this could offset some of the negative impact that lower moods and times where she doesn't get enough rest, but it's anyone's guess as to how much effect it has (or if what I've read is even true).  It also mentioned that fulfilling her wishes during that time helped too, but I'm assuming that this due to nothing more than getting the "Fulfilled" moodlet that would help elevate her mood.  I also saw someone say that sims could get a wish to get medical advice, but I've never had a sim generate that wish in all of the time I've played.

But if what Pam says is true (and I do believe that it is:  she has had enough sim babies to know what she's talking about lol), these extra measures wouldn't even be necessary if you're taking proper care of the mother to begin with.

[jeanamariex3]

Sandi French had been fully walking, talking, and potty trained, in my hands (she had zero days left as a toddler), but I guess since i didn't give her more time to develop her skills, she ended up with the snob trait. I guess snobs can be the result of bad parenting as well.