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[loose nut]

Necro time! I was just thinking about how dwarven children could develop after reading a bit of a talk with Toady. My version is less complex than the OP.

Goal: by the time the dwarf has come of age, he has up to around Novice to Proficient level in one or two skills. I think that's fair.

The idea is that there would be two stages of childhood devolpment. In early childhood, they play. You can't control what they play at. In late childhood, they are apprenticed, and you can control that.

Playing should be a set of activities that a child dwarf chooses based on their aptitudes, inclinations, and what their parents do. Such activities could be:
- wrestling other children (for athletic children, children with warrior parents, children with belligerent personality traits): trains wrestling and other combat skills obviously
- building stacks of toys (creative children, those w/ craftsmen parents): trains masonry, or a crafting skill possibly and if, say, the toys are wood or metal it can train woodcrafting, carpentry, even metalcrafting – or mechanics (toy gears should be a thing)
- hunting and seizing vermin: trains hunting/animal training skill, also may make a child enjoy the outdoors
- gathering crops (like it is now, but less frequently/less skill gain): could also extend to foraging
- (rarely) playing with fire: trains furnace operator/ wood burner, but is obviously quite dangerous and you have to watch out for this!

Playing should get a young dwarf to dabbling most of the time, unless the dwarf's a genius. Also, trauma that is incurred during play might switch a dwarf's interests, like if he gets attacked while hunting for toads outdoors.

Late childhood, it's apprenticeship. By default, to one of his parents, or possibly an adult friend if the kid is "put off by authority and tradition," but you can assign the young dwarf, who now shows up as "apprentice", to any other dwarf you want. For the next couple of years, the child follows the master around and learns based on the same teacher/student/observer mechanics military dwarves learn by, so the more his master does in his chosen craft, the more the child learns. (And since it's patterned after the military mechanic, it's not that quick )

Exception: children of the presiding nobles. These dwarves should be drains on your resources that you can't control! They should not be available as apprentices and get to do whatever they want, still. I can definitely see the son of the duke being an obnoxious dilettante who just decides to take one of the jobs you've asked your forge for and try forging a sword one day. Though it is far more likely they'd simply hang around chatting with other dwarves, or play at war if they're aggressive or athletic.

Loitering kids could be drawn to features like windows, trade depots, caged animals, and statues, instead of always hanging around the meeting areas.

So... then you would have adult dwarves with baseline proficiency in the skills your fort uses, depending on the skill of their teachers and how well they focused over their childhood.

[neek]

Well, this looks interesting, so I'll contribute.

A better child development would be more interesting, if only because it makes more realistic and more desirable to have a fort populated with children. So, here goes:
1). Apprenticeship seems more realistic than organized schools, especially for a medieval-world setting. The populations that we're dealing with as well makes having schools seem rather... unimportant. If there are schools, then they are dedicated to higher education, not basic education. I don't think we should deal with such schools just yet. Realistically, apprenticeship lasts for upwards to 6 or 7 years, and oftentimes relies on hereditary practices or some sort of familial or social interaction: An apprentice doesn't just join with any mentor, but there has to be a relationship before. I think this latter one is very important.
2). Apprenticeship should be defined, in-game, as a relationship status between the two (I'd say that a mentor cannot teach more than one person at a time). This should be viewed in the [z][r] screen. The tasks assigned are dependent: A mentor does his job as usual (using whatever available tasks), while the apprentice has the task "apprenticing." In down time, there might be a "teaching" task assigned to the mentor. This means there are no scheduling options, nor is there any drawback to having this relationship in terms of micromanagement (except for giving your dwarves work to do). As stated before, the effectiveness of teaching is dependent on the teacher/learner skill. A poor teacher or a poor learner will not get far, or lose interest fast. These can dampen social relationships, creating much more interesting interdwarven social situations, as  seen in point 3.
3). Selection should be... interesting. The mentor could be randomly selected, or rather, it could be a parent, a relative of the parent, or a friend of the parent to determine the apprenticing: This makes it a little more realistic than a random sample or battling the dissonance of free economy and choice and Dwarven economics (that is: There is no congruence between the two. If you don't like the skills the child has acquired, you can always turn off those labors and assign him something else once he grows up).
4). This level of social checking and interaction through relationship can be expanded to nobles: A noble's child will probably be trained in his parents' noble position (a good noble, after all, will train their child to be a good leader as well. The poor learner/teacher will probably make a bad noble out of the child.) This can also mean that a noble's child might end up with a different profession and branch off from his parents (if a mentor can only have one apprentice, and those two are parent and child, then other children will have to find other work). This can create resentment between siblings as one will indubitably be selected to gain those skills, making them more likely to take over their parent's role if left unchecked by the player when something bad happens to the parent (voluntary retirement is not coded in, nor do I think it should be--well, nevermind, it should. That sounds like Fun. Embarking with 7 dwarves, 6 retire in the Summer of the embark. Huzzah!)
5). There are some loose ends: What if the child is adopted by an apprentice for the military? By a militia captain, that sounds alright, after all leadership training is fine. But by a common soldier? That sounds iffy and dangerous. That needs to be mitigated properly in mostly armor and weapons training, but a knight/squire relationship could be created, if handled properly. I can probably think of others, but I'm pressed for time.

Schools, however, remain a bit of a mystery to me for Dwarf Fortress. You need to dedicate a dwarf to be a teacher, you need to create adequate room and space for them... or designate a zone. Then you need qualifiable, general skills to pass down to kids. The idea of a liberal education isn't exactly one that's right for Dwarf Fortress, and there are no cultural aspects to pass down, like dance or song, nor is there a general idea of literacy (or a skill regarding that.) Without those, then such schools might be similar to the apprentice/mentor system, just on a larger scale. But to do that, we'd need visiting dwarves attending such institutions of higher learning, and that sounds like an idea for another time.

[Jimlad11]

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[Brotato]

You don't just "try out" forging and mining.

I'm fifteen and that's exactly what I did. I enjoy blacksmithing as a hobby and source of small income. Seriously you all make it sound completely retarded that
some kid would be interested in these different types of activity like blacksmithing and weaponsmithing like me.

[SuicideJunkie]

For a dwarven child to play with mining, they don't need to get all fancy with tunnels and designations.  Let them sit in the yard banging rocks together instead of kitchen pans, or carving themselves a boulder fort instead of a tree or couch fort.

[Nil Eyeglazed]

I really like the OP suggestion.  I don't see how it would be game breaking.  Every once in a while you'd end up with a no-quality item.  Them's the breaks.

Plus, I absolutely do think that kids just try out professional work-- certainly, much more than adults do.  That includes things like mining, even for people, and one would be inclined to think that dwarven children would be especially inclined to play at it.

I think you could include a couple of twists on the OP suggestion as well:

Juvenile delinquency.  Allow unhappy children to make an item on their own when tantruming, then get jail time for theft.

"Get outta the forge, brat!"  Keep flashing a task while a kid is working on it.  If a dwarf comes and takes over the task, they kick the kid out of the forge and start the job over from scratch.

Mentorship things are difficult to imagine how to do in detail in the existing framework.  I think a good option for teaching would be to allow teaching as a labor.  When a dwarf with teaching permitted began a task, it would flash a new job, that only children could accept, and the teacher would be stuck at the workshop (or wherever) with "Waiting for student."  When the student arrived, the job would begin.  Both teacher and student would receive experience.  This would make teaching a somewhat more painful thing to engage in than just making your stuff and having a kid get free xp.

[Farmerbob]

Allow apprenticeships for children.  As apprentices they create nothing, but haul around the products that the master needs, and gain a small amount of skill just watching.

We could even allow children to choose their own masters based on social matching based on skills & stats.  On adulthood, they could be redisignated however one wishes.

You could set a minimum age for apprenticing at 6 years old - by this point, the child would likely have thrown a few parties and met most of the adults in the fort.

I'm seeing a real FPS issue here with children in my fort.  I have two mothers with a dozen or so children in tow, it's a lot like what happens to animal trainers if you train too many animals with them and don't cage or train them.

[ImBocaire]

I think you guys are missing a really important point. To wit:
You're all right AND you're all wrong.

Ideally, why not provide tokens to cause a variety of behaviors based on culture? Just make the cultural value set visible in embark, and provide ways to change it if you want to.

I think this is a fantastic idea. Ethic tags seem kind of underutilized. There could be dwarven civs with [CHILD_LABOR:UNTHINKABLE], which would limit your children to doing odd jobs and chores (and the occasional strange mood), and some other dwarven civs with [CHILD_LABOR:MANDATORY], which would work children to the bone but also produce potentially valuable skilled adults, and [CHILD_LABOR:IN_CRISIS], where children would only be expected to work if there were a severe shortage of adult labor, and [CHILD_LABOR:MENIAL], which would have children only work in the jobs that don't produce things with quality levels (furnace operation, wood burning, harvesting, mining, hauling, pump operating, etc.). There could even be Spartan-style societies with [CHILD_LABOR:MILITARY], which would basically give every kid a training sword and an automatic conscription into a militia, to train until they hit adulthood.

[Jimlad11]

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[theothersteve7]

I think training children with skills is the most valuable idea in the OP.  Some of the other stuff is pretty fluffy, IMO.

[blizzerd]

as a simpler but not necessary better alternative to OP's:

make children observe working adults, and play with the toy axes, forges, and whatever, as soon as a clear preference is found (constantly watched people herbalise)

 when they have some basic skill from watching (up to max of novice or something) they should attempt to make a semi-legendary item in the field of that skill, semi as in its not as awesome, but still a pretty decent item that will give them some skill

if they fail, they lose all there skill in the field they gained from watching and get a bad trait to that skill (dislike herbalism, or whatever), and the process repeats in another field, if it succeeds the process also repeats but without the negative trait, and the possibility to make another cool item in the same field

this continues till adulthood

[Shmo]

I much like the dedicated apprenticeship idea, but it seems to me that in any developed fort about half the children would end up studying naught but the fine arts of amateur art-critiquing and wine-tasting under Urist McUnemployedCheesemaker.

[Farmerbob]

I much like the dedicated apprenticeship idea, but it seems to me that in any developed fort about half the children would end up studying naught but the fine arts of amateur art-critiquing and wine-tasting under Urist McUnemployedCheesemaker.

Heh.  My cheesemakers stay busy

Actually I normally have one dwarf handling a herd of Alpacas with repeating tasks: shear, milk, spin, cheese, with process plants and/or process plants to bag thrown in, if I'm growing processable plants.

But seriously, I don't care what they learn.  If they help haul a bit that's great.  I just want to keep them from getting underfoot.

Right now I'm having a kidsplosion issue in my long term fort.  After 30ish years I have @20 adult and @45 children, and 30 of those kids are from two mothers, so I have two mobs of children following two of my active dwarves around.

I must say that when it's time to destroy things, having that many kids around is awesome - there is one thing and one thing only that you can count on kids helping with, and that's destruction orders.  They will MOB destruction jobs. **

Failing any sort of apprenticeship system, can we at least have schools?  Keep the kids in one place for a significant part of the day.  There's already a teaching skill I think, not sure what it actually does.  Create a zone like a hospital, call it a school, and fill it with thrones and tables?

** What this implies about children in general is actually pretty accurate, LOL.

[ImBocaire]

Teaching skill is military, it lets dwarves hold more effective demonstrations of skills.

[Shmo]

Failing any sort of apprenticeship system, can we at least have schools?  Keep the kids in one place for a significant part of the day.  There's already a teaching skill I think, not sure what it actually does.  Create a zone like a hospital, call it a school, and fill it with thrones and tables?

I say cage the runts (sleep deprivation in a cage-trap cell might work), then place them in locations where they can observe what it is you want them to learn. Preferably something traumatizing. Not only will this be a great didactic experience, but it will build true dwarven character and prepare them for the rest of their miserable little lives, slaves to an uncaring god and a sadistic overseer.