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[MDFification]

Just wondered if we could do something with the dwarf children...
Most societies in history have used what we'd call child labour. Even if it's something simple like helping out their parents with chores around the house, kids haven't exactly been idle. Most societies have their children help their parents at work.

Right now the kids are just idle, consuming resources and in general being walking liabilities. If we could at least have them automatically join in simple hauling jobs that would be great.

[FrankyPlaysGames]

Yeah this makes sense. Perhaps nothing as big as furniture, or stone, or stone furniture, but I can see this working with wood or lighter things. Maybe they can even get a happy thought from "Helping out" or something.
Of course, this might mean they overdose on the happy thoughts, but maybe they only do what their parents are doing.
I.E. Urist McFather goes to make clothes, as is his labor. The child will accompany him to the workshop, and hang around until an article of clothing is finished. Immediately, Urist McChildSlave hauls the clothes to the appropriate stockpile.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Fun fact: Dwarven children do, in fact, haul. Just not as often as adult dwarves do.

[MonkeyHead]

This could be tied into some kind of apprentice structure - learning from observation maybe?

As GWG points out, they do some useful work, particularly in harvesting and deconstruction. This is why newly matured dwarves tend to be good farmers already.

[Sheb]

While I think this is a good idea, I4d like to point out you can already do this using thrid-party tools like Dwarf Therapist. But yeah, it'd make sense to have this in Vanilla as well.

[Farmerbob]

Heh, designate a bunch of constructed items (walls, ramps, floors, stairs) for deconstruction when your adult dwarves are busy, and watch what happens.

[Hyndis]

Fun fact: Dwarven children do, in fact, haul. Just not as often as adult dwarves do.

So far as I can tell dwarven children only do 3 jobs:

1) they can harvest crops but not plant crops. As part of harvesting crops they may also haul the plants to a stockpile.
2) they can pick up clothing or store owned clothing items.
3) they can deconstruct constructed tiles, such as walls or floors.

Note that if a dwarf is boozing, they're holding the barrel and so when they're done boozing they will put the barrel back. If the tile they got the barrel from has since been filled by another barrel, the dwarf will haul the barrel they are holding to the nearest stockpile that accepts booze. This is why occasionally nobles, soldiers, and children may be hauling barrels around.

[Arni]

This could be tied into some kind of apprentice structure - learning from observation maybe?

I find this a good idea.
Depending on the implementation it can describe the society a bit better;
Watching the parents would describe a slightly more family(clan) based structure. So you have your smith family, your carpenter family and so on.

Having apprenticeships where the youngsters follow around their masters and learn from them is more late-medieval/industrial age and supports guilds.
When going with guilds one could go crazy with economy. Not enougth jobs for a guild? Some of the guild dwarves leave the fort to search work elsewhere.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Fun fact: Dwarven children do, in fact, haul. Just not as often as adult dwarves do.

So far as I can tell dwarven children only do 3 jobs:

1) they can harvest crops but not plant crops. As part of harvesting crops they may also haul the plants to a stockpile.
2) they can pick up clothing or store owned clothing items.
3) they can deconstruct constructed tiles, such as walls or floors.

Again, I'm pretty sure children do haul.
I'm pretty sure that the only reason kids don't do other work is that they can't have the labors activated. Oh, and they're lazy.

[Hyndis]

Again, I'm pretty sure children do haul.
I'm pretty sure that the only reason kids don't do other work is that they can't have the labors activated. Oh, and they're lazy.

What have you seen dwarven children haul?

The only times I have seen a child haul an object would be to move an owned item to their room or to return a booze back back to a booze stockpile after drinking from it.

[CrzyMonkeyNinja]

Again, I'm pretty sure children do haul.
I'm pretty sure that the only reason kids don't do other work is that they can't have the labors activated. Oh, and they're lazy.

What have you seen dwarven children haul?

The only times I have seen a child haul an object would be to move an owned item to their room or to return a booze back back to a booze stockpile after drinking from it.

Personally, I think this whole discussion is de-railing the thread. It's not about "Do kids haul?" it's about "I think kids should haul more".

Anyway, I do agree that kids don't do enough. They are viewed as little leeches for a reason. I do, however, like the apprenticeship idea a bit better. I suppose it seems to fit more with the medieval craftsmanship theme than simply making kids do the grunt work. It also could have the benefit of being able to accommodate full-grown dwarves so that we could escape the (rather gamey) "I have never made a sword in my life." *makes 50 swords* "I'm a MASTER!!" situation. I dunnknow, maybe I’m the only one whom that bothers.

[Particleman]

Yeah... for the technological time frame we're dealing with in DF, kids were put to work pretty much as soon as they could walk. "Childhood" as we think of it today is a fairly new concept. I don't think you should be able to assign labors to kids directly, but they should do jobs and or get experience related to what their mothers are doing- i.e. if mom's a weaponsmith then Junior is probably going to have a better understanding of weaponsmithing just from observation than a random dwarf who's never seen a weapon forged in his life, so Junior being a novice weaponsmith isn't unreasonable (at least in my view.) Most hauling jobs would be appropriate too- I don't know about stone or wood hauling though. I have trouble picturing a six year old moving an eighty pound log around, even with a wheelbarrow. Hell, just getting it into the wheelbarrow wouldn't be feasible without adult assistance.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Again, I'm pretty sure children do haul.
I'm pretty sure that the only reason kids don't do other work is that they can't have the labors activated. Oh, and they're lazy.

What have you seen dwarven children haul?
The only times I have seen a child haul an object would be to move an owned item to their room or to return a booze back back to a booze stockpile after drinking from it.

Yup. Not often, but for some reason I don't get a lot of kids. (Also, I haven't been playing so much recently.)

[RenoFox]

Excellent ideas, hauling and learning from parents. In forts I defend solely by militias the adult dwarves have so high mortality rate that I routinely end up with over 50% of population being children. Having some professional knowledge when they grow up would mean the carefully nurtured next generation wouldn't grow up to be worthless peasant layabouts.

Also, I've always wanted the children to play with toys to gain skills. Seems like miniforges and toy axes would be ideal for that.

[Dwarf_Eater]

As far as i know, children in df can do anything, what they want. I remember having legendary +5 gemsetter and weaponsmith children in my fort