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[falcc]

Simple: Dwarven children should cause trouble if they aren't happy.

When Dwarven children are upset but not enough so to start punching things at random, they should go around pulling levers and starting odd hauling jobs of their own initiative. They can't pass locked doors, so there are still ways to prevent total fortress melt down, but there should be a risk that kids occasionally cause that sort of thing so they're attended to. When temples are more clearly defined really rowdy children should be at risk for defiling one of them and being cursed somehow. There should be a risk of children lashing out at nobility in some non-lethal way or hiding/forbidding random supplies with no announcement, but also the chance of a mist zombie or wereskunk to suddenly be standing inside all of your defenses by a busted altar.

Aside from the regular mood changes from being near nice things, making some toys for the fortress should have slightly increased priority. Children should also benefit from good moods listening to songs and stories from their elders, possibly encouraging players to leave a couple of Dwarves idle as they'll naturally entertain children with their conversations and stories.

This creates some opportunities for Dwarven culture to become more central to the game. Once families are defined maybe children whose parents work in a different burrow get bad moods from not seeing them often. At the same time they benefit from contact with their family and with storytellers that are theoretically teaching them the kind of Dwarven values that make one question whether pulling the lever in the adamantine mine is really the right thing to do. If apprenticeship and other labors for children get implemented they could enjoy working with a parent at a workshop and learning the trade, or might dislike it based on their personality so they don't end up doubling the available hauling labor for the fort without any drawbacks.

[Witty]

I really like all these suggestions, +1 for sure.

[TimoRan]

Simple: Dwarven children should cause trouble if they aren't happy.

When Dwarven children are upset but not enough so to start punching things at random...

What if I want to make them angry enough to punch things?

Surely, you've heard of Dwarven day-care. (I think it could use a buff!)

[utunnels]

Well consider many ppl's attitude towards dwarvern children, I suspect this feature will give them another reason to just atomsmash them all to make sure they don't pull a lever to a flood gate.

[falcc]

Toady has talked about how he wants to make it harder to learn skills afresh. He's obviously got the framework for that started with knowing how to write particular kinds of poems, now too. It's only a matter of time until kids studying chairdwarfship is the only way you can expand your dining hall after the tragic magma-lever-pulling accident of the previous carpenter. And once they've got a use in the fortress that is powerful enough to keep them alive, they should be mischievous if they aren't taken care of.

There's going to be plenty going on with nobles eventually, and maybe guilds and religious leaders. Children historically have been more of a shaper of social policy than a thing to kill with as much expediency as possible.

For that matter, if kids start getting violent and your civilizations ethics aren't explicitly "destroying the next generation of the civ is a personal matter" this would be a really good way for forts to repopulate bandit historical figures and cursed creatures as the world goes on. They get banished from your fort via Dwarven Justice, aren't accepted in your immediate hill dwarf linked areas, and goes off and joins a bandit entity and grows up there. A fortress could just go bad and lead to tons of fun until the fort is destroyed, and all the kids run off and by the time your next fort loads up there's a local bandit problem.

[Orange Wizard]

Tying this in with the suggested "apprenticeship" mechanic (and what falcc said above), we could have children who aren't assigned any job being mischievous.