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[weenog]

Come on now, you're on a forum open to the general public.  You know damn good and well most people don't read. 

[Aseaheru]

they text dont they.

[NTJedi]

How many people in the real world could do anything useful at 12 years old?  Not claim it, not believe it, do it.  Hell, how many people in the real world can do anything useful as adults?

In the real world which are not within 3rd world countries the majority of children are attending schools thus learning computer skills, social skills, mathematics, language skills, etc., etc., which are all key components for obtaining more complex careers.  As a result most parents do not feel it's important to pass their skills/knowledge to their children.  This would be VERY different if schools did not exist in the real world and schools don't exist within dwarf fortress.
If you examine any civilization across history you'll discover children would usually learn the skills of their parents even at very young ages.  The same should be true for dwarf fortress to match what was done across history.

[TheKaspa]

But we are speaking about dwarves, not humans!

[NTJedi]

But we are speaking about dwarves, not humans!

Where is your evidence dwarves are more self-centered and would care less for their childrens future?  I find nothing within books or online to justify such a statement.  Considering the parents receive happy thoughts for speaking with a child, "finds helping other rewarding" and have many social traits such as teacher and consoler. 

What you said was saying why should emeralds be solid like diamonds.   

[Noobazzah]

The kids could at least play with those toys and therefore learn some skills, like hammerdwarf and furnace operator. Also, I think it's weird that in a fort woth century-old wisened dwarves, a 12-year old kid becomes mayor and starts dating a 110-years old militia captain...

[islandlife]

its especially annoying when half your pop is kids

[Lich180]

Stick em all in Dwarven Childcare, come back when they come of age, and draft em.

[Tirion]

They do gain social skills. And friends. With a bit lot of micromanagement, you could turn them into legendary swimmers (Strength, Agility, Endurance, Willpower, Spatial Sense and Kinesthetic Sense). Forcing them to fight pets AKA Dwarven Childcare is also good, especially now that they wear clothes. Once they grow up, have them pump air until they are Legendary +5 pump operators (Strength, Toughness, Endurance, Willpower, Kinesthetic Sense), then draft them. If you keep arranging accidents for the weakest/most injured ones in front of the others one at a time, with clothes, mist, booze, prepared meals and good dining room used liberally, you could end up with a bunch of scarred, emotionally hardened, indefatiguable tough as nail with hulking muscles recruits.

[Escapism]

How many people in the real world could do anything useful at 12 years old?  Not claim it, not believe it, do it.  Hell, how many people in the real world can do anything useful as adults?

I don't think it hurts verisimilitude that much for 12 year olds to mature into mostly unskilled peasants.  It would be nice if they didn't, but it's no egregious error that they do.

I was a fairly proficient gamer, adequate at a few sports, could read/write, do basic maths and was decent at critical thinking. Point being, as someone else already stated, that life in today's society favours other skills than medieval societies did. There was also a lot higher pressure with no welfare system etc., so children spent time learning useful skills instead of just trying to have fun all the time. Imo the fact that children are useless should be solved by dramatically decreasing the amount of migrants, apprenticeship and changing social skills/relations so that they are actually useful for something.

[knutor]

assign them to a burrow

I'm assuming this is to prevent snatchers from grabbing them.  Great idea!  Unfortunately children don't abide by burrow restrictions.  They wander, even when made a burrow citizen.  I played like that for a month before someone here told me, about them wandering.  HEH! 

Incidently, I play with forced labor on.  A dwarf child and noble should work or be eaten.  Knutor

[Noobazzah]

Nobles don't work? Mine do, even the queen makes clothes. No mods affecting. Bug?

[Xen0n]

A good idea is to give all new kids basic training in at least one profitable profession. Since skilless peasants will have wood/bone/rock crafter moods, whle a peasant with adequate weaponsmithing skill becomes a legendary weaponsmith!

Alternately, give them some good armor, and send them at the goblins!

Yeah, for now I cheat and use Therapist to make all my kids haulers etc., since I don't want to cheat too bad by making them full-fledged workers.  (Though I disabled wood/refuse hauling after several successful kidnappings.  I guess little Urist McTimmy wandering out by himself into the forest to grab a log was an easy target )  If you have a mod with training workshops, you could make a "School" burrow where the kids just use the training workshops. 

But essentially in vanilla DF, it is always more advantageous to atomsmash all your kids/babies and wait for migrants to replace them, since migrants can start working right away, and will at least have some skill in something.

[Noobazzah]

That will give a lot of bad thoughts for your dwarves. Would need a lot of waterfalls to avoid tantrum spiral...

[Xen0n]

That will give a lot of bad thoughts for your dwarves. Would need a lot of waterfalls to avoid tantrum spiral...

Builds character.  Might be safer to do them one at a time, plus has the added bonus of slowly desensitizing your fort to death.