Influencing Child's Likes/Abilities

[Æthelred]

When do you "exactly" start influencing their stats?
Does it matter if you invest time on showing your kid around early on Spring Year 2?
Is it possible or how hard is to make your child choose a different path?
For context, I married Lumina and I want my daughter to take Ranching and/or Farming.
Extra input/tips are appreciated on how to raise specific stats.
Thanks in advanced!

[Mabbie]

I show my kid my ranching tools, egg, milk, fodder and feed everyday. By the beginning of year 3 she developed quite an interest in farming and ranching.

It is worth the time, in my opinion.

[Seltyiel]

It matters for you to show your child to everyone in town multiple times throughout year 2 to prevent them from saying things like "no one likes me" in year 3, and to regularly socialize them with people you want to influence him/her see you talk to said people. Your friendship with the town people may also affect this but it hasn't been proven.

Farming for example, you can socialize them more with vesta/cecilia/matthew, drop them off at their farm and have them walk home, let them see you talking to them, show them the hoe/watering can (they might say huuh? but it actually does work! It's been datamined and proven that this does influence career influence even if they are confused).
give them crops/animal products in year 3/4, work your farm, show them your tools, ect. I've heard Lumina's child gets quite unruly in year 4 (teenage years) so be prepared for the edge even if your baby is happy in year 2 and 3!

Progress is slow, and the difficulty really depends on who the child is with and what career path you are aiming for. For Lumina it is easier to influence your child in music, art, farming and academics (though for farming you may have to push a bit harder, but it's easier than rancher. I got a little slither of interest just from taking my baby to vesta's farm, dropping him off and showing him the hoe a bunch and working on my farm) within a couple of days but this is not a consistent thing, it will be difficult to get him/her to become a athlete as that is their least influenced trait, but no career path is impossible so long as you put in the work towards it all throughout year 2, 3, and 4.

I suggest taking away all toys aside the toy car(?) I believe that is the main one that doesn't have a distinct career influence but I may be wrong :/ so be mindful and keep a eye on their stats! Ball influences athletics, sketch book influences art, blocks influences academics (I am pretty sure blocks do, but I could be wrong and am mixing it up with the car so keep this in mind, the safest bet is just no toys.)

Also apparently snuggling/lullaby/throwing up doesn't actually help your friendship with your child, only picking them up does when they ask and carrying them around. (which is probably why a heart/music note doesn't show up anymore for these actions) so be sure to pick your baby up whenever they ask even if you just set them back down! It'll help your relationship in the future.

All children have paths easier for them, and paths more difficult. Farming will be easier for lumina's child than ranching but you can try to influence both if you want to, or one or the other and over-time it should pay off so long as you show them farming tools/milk/eggs, work your farm in regards to crops & animals (if you don't have a preference between farming and ranching) and befriend vesta, cecilia and matthew, show them around town every few days (or everyday if you wanna be thorough) and hopefully that should help in the future.

Art - Best Candidates: Befriend Gordy, Sebastian (he's a painter by hobby) and routintely show them your child in year 2, Take him to Gordy's and drop him off, use the sketchpad when he's a child, Art feels relatively easy to influence in most children tbh (Nami, Rock, Lumina, Molly, Gordy and Gustafa all have children that are to some degree naturally interested in art to some degree lol which is basically almost everyone)

Music - Befriend Gustafa, Lumina (if not married to her) and routinely show them your child in year 2, take child to gustafa's yurt, give child the music sheet from lumina in chapter 3(?) if you didn't marry her, no toys is safest in year 2

Athlete - Befriend Chris, Wally and Hugh and routintely show them your child in year 2, Take your child to their house and drop them off, try not to use your horse and run everywhere, use the Ball toy only

Academics - Befriend Carter, Flora and Daryl and routinely show them your child in year 2, take the child by the dig site or daryl's lab daily, show your child things from the dig-site, use the blocks toy (this may be the car toy and i'm mis-remembering)

Farmer - Befriend Vesta, Cecilia, Matthew, Takakura(?) and routinely show your child to them in year 2, Take your child by vesta's farm and drop them off, show your child the hoe/watering can and crops you've grown, no toys in year 2 is safest

Rancher - Work on your farm with your animals as much as you can (breed your animals, try not to sell them if possible, have a lot of animals) show your child milk/eggs and the milker/brush, you can try to show your child chickens or your dog/cat but in year 2 they may be afraid of one or both of them, no toys in year 2 is safest

Technically it's been seen to have a boost to your childs interest in a specific category if you are only friends with the people who you want to influence your child (say you want farming, and you only befriend vesta/cecilia/matthew out of the whole town). But this may also cause them to be depressed in year 3 from lack of socialization with the town so that is up to you.

Keep in mind what you do with your time will also affect them, if you spend all your time at the digsite and dont' pay attention to your farm they will grow in academics. They're a mini you for most their life! Use your actions to influence them just as much as gifts. (so if you want a farmer/rancher, make sure to work on all aspects of your farm)

[Æthelred]

Thank you very much for the tips! Take my points! You da bears!

[Erin the Angry]

I remember in the original, my kid ALWAYS went academic. I figured out it was because I horribly abused the seed maker. I switched to using tartan to make hybrid crops rather than mass produce fruit tree seeds and that made him more interested in farming. I don't know if this carries over to the remake or not but there's something to think of.

[Syl]

Originally posted by Erin the Angry:

I remember in the original, my kid ALWAYS went academic. I figured out it was because I horribly abused the seed maker. I switched to using tartan to make hybrid crops rather than mass produce fruit tree seeds and that made him more interested in farming. I don't know if this carries over to the remake or not but there's something to think of.

If you ever got the cutscene with the box your child finds in year 3, depending on how you answer, that also increases academics massively so. I'm pretty sure the increase is comparable to the increases you get when advancing a chapter, if not more so. Maybe the original version of the game the seed maker influenced how your child turns out, idk, but that doesn't appear to be the case for this version of the game

[neo.matt]

hello, lumina's kids have the weakest farming and rancher traits, your influincing does not start in chapter 2, it begins with molding your farms structure, if u want a ranching child u need to be using your resources to obtain a male and female sheep, ONE male and the other variety of female cows, buying a hen and rooster, the more investment u put into chapter one the better start your child gains in chapter 2, try to have the pond built before chapter 2 helps as well. In chapter 2 your child needs to be picked up and carried to the big animals and shown them show your child chicks, NEVER show lumina's child a fully grown chicken,they hate them
you also need to obtain ducks in summer by waking up after your wife with the pond built, you can then show your child ducks and chicks, autumn u need to wake up after your wife to obtain the cat, also brush your animals, nuzzle them twice a day, sell eggs milk and wool thru the shipping bin, befriend takura if u want, in your free time carry your child to the far corner of the pasture and drop them off the corner, you wont have much time to go off your farm as chapter 2 is important for developing your child's likes, and is the most important step, breed your animals, and always have 2 fertilised eggs in incubation and sell the adults, show your child every kind of egg, and milk clippers brush milker, towards the end of summer your child may ask if animals are cute say yes, then try to force that question every day by show them wool to prevent pick up,
end of chapter 2 cut scene will be a musician one just respond with with too early to tell to limit the musician gains, chapter 3 buy the male goat from van, ride your horse long distances show your child the stuff you showed in chapter 2 but when they ask is milking fun respond SO MUCH fun and when they ask is it fun to work respond with the similar SO FUN response, try to constantly feed milk producing animals fodder + to help increase animal profits (cows will need both fodder and fodder+ in their bin) lumina's children don't take eggs of milk so u only need one of each to show, avoiding crop related activities in chapter 2 and 3 also helps rancher skill boosting, end of chapter 3 cut scene will be another musician one respond with too early to tell to again limit the influence, chapter 4 your child should have enough ranching likes and considerable ranching skill to relax and do so minor activities you held back on as when they are teenager their are less likely swayed by then. sorry for the bad spelling errors , i failed in english as a subject every year in school.

[Erin the Angry]

Originally posted by Syl:

Originally posted by Erin the Angry:

I remember in the original, my kid ALWAYS went academic. I figured out it was because I horribly abused the seed maker. I switched to using tartan to make hybrid crops rather than mass produce fruit tree seeds and that made him more interested in farming. I don't know if this carries over to the remake or not but there's something to think of.

If you ever got the cutscene with the box your child finds in year 3, depending on how you answer, that also increases academics massively so. I'm pretty sure the increase is comparable to the increases you get when advancing a chapter, if not more so. Maybe the original version of the game the seed maker influenced how your child turns out, idk, but that doesn't appear to be the case for this version of the game

Hope not because I used that to get mega rich with barely any work. I filled both my first 2 fields with fruit trees and got them to highest quality then made tons of seeds and only used my 3rd field to grow regular crops. I remember seeing him stare at the seed maker often. On a file where I decided not to ever use the seed maker and spent millions of hours painstakingly watching the tartan animation he gravitated to farmer quickly, whereas every other run he barely cared about anything else and had an absolute boner for academics, like, not even remotely close in the interests page.

[Mabbie]

Originally posted by Erin the Angry:

I remember in the original, my kid ALWAYS went academic. I figured out it was because I horribly abused the seed maker. I switched to using tartan to make hybrid crops rather than mass produce fruit tree seeds and that made him more interested in farming. I don't know if this carries over to the remake or not but there's something to think of.

That explains why my kid has such a high academic skill.

[Æthelred]

Originally posted by Mabbie:

Originally posted by Erin the Angry:

I remember in the original, my kid ALWAYS went academic. I figured out it was because I horribly abused the seed maker. I switched to using tartan to make hybrid crops rather than mass produce fruit tree seeds and that made him more interested in farming. I don't know if this carries over to the remake or not but there's something to think of.

That explains why my kid has such a high academic skill.

You sure it's not because your answered the wooden box event "correctly"? It boosts the Academic Likes stats significantly. This is where I've gone wrong.