What skills can children learn?

[UmYTho]

I'm trying to make my child have a variety of skills before adulthood. Is there a list somewhere that shows skills kids can learn? Thanks.

[marstinson]

Kind of tricky to answer but the short answer is that children can learn most skills that any other Sim can learn, but they can't always practice those skills, they won't get anything showing up on the Skills tab until they age up to Teen (teens can learn all skills), and they're capped at three skill levels for most. The notable exceptions to this that come to mind are that kids can't learn Gardening or Charisma without mods.

On top of that, some kid skills are not called what the regular skill is. So playing with the pegbox gets a Toddler up to three levels in the Pegbox skill, but that translates to three levels of the Logic skill at a later life stage. The xylophone gets them up to three levels of the Xylophone skill, which translates into Guitar skill at the appropriate age. They can work out with a stereo or TV, but won't get Athletic skill until later. Kids can cook with the kid's baking oven or use the blocks table and have Cooking and Handiness show up later. The children's books do pretty much the same thing, The yellow ones will give up to three levels of Painting, the green ones will give up to three levels of Writing, and the pink ones go to Logic (I don't recall whether that stacks with the Pegbox). Children can practice Writing at any computer, but can't write any books until they are teens. I think they can Chat on the computer, which might be a back way to Charisma. I haven't tried, but you've piqued my curiosity.

Anyway, as far as the base game skills go and except for Gardening and Charisma, children can learn most of the skills, but are level-capped and the skills won't appear until they are Teens.

[UmYTho]

Originally posted by marstinson:

Kind of tricky to answer but the short answer is that children can learn most skills that any other Sim can learn, but they can't always practice those skills, they won't get anything showing up on the Skills tab until they age up to Teen (teens can learn all skills), and they're capped at three skill levels for most. The notable exceptions to this that come to mind are that kids can't learn Gardening or Charisma without mods.

On top of that, some kid skills are not called what the regular skill is. So playing with the pegbox gets a Toddler up to three levels in the Pegbox skill, but that translates to three levels of the Logic skill at a later life stage. The xylophone gets them up to three levels of the Xylophone skill, which translates into Guitar skill at the appropriate age. They can work out with a stereo or TV, but won't get Athletic skill until later. Kids can cook with the kid's baking oven or use the blocks table and have Cooking and Handiness show up later. The children's books do pretty much the same thing, The yellow ones will give up to three levels of Painting, the green ones will give up to three levels of Writing, and the pink ones go to Logic (I don't recall whether that stacks with the Pegbox). Children can practice Writing at any computer, but can't write any books until they are teens. I think they can Chat on the computer, which might be a back way to Charisma. I haven't tried, but you've piqued my curiosity.

Anyway, as far as the base game skills go and except for Gardening and Charisma, children can learn most of the skills, but are level-capped and the skills won't appear until they are Teens.

Thanks a bunch! That explains a lot actually.

[Peno11]

Actually, children in Sims 3 can write books just like teens and older can. And IMO it's the best way for children to make some money. I just happen to have two Sims in my current family that writes book and the kid did make over §2,000 per the first week just by writing. True, his young adult father made more than §8,000, but he also wrote more books than the kid, since, you know, he's professional writer, so he has time to write, while the kid has to go to school and scout, so he only can write in his free time which is scarce. Still, I think 2,000 is pretty impressive for a kid over a week. And that includes quite a lot of bestsellers ;-)