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[ProtDock]

Hi, i've started a fort and im not allowing migrants to come in, is it possible to teach children skills?? cheers

ProtDock

[Lezard]

The only thing I've ever been able to teach children is to "not care about anything any more" (via a pit fall trap into the nursery)

I haven't heard of them gaining actual skills....

[Girlinhat]

I think they can learn farming, as you can toggle food-gathering for everyone or just for farmers.  It gives a small amount of planting exp, so I often has my level 1 lye maker migrants become farmers after a year or so.  Sometimes children would grow up as farmers.  Unfortunately, it's extremely difficult to control this and generally not worth the effort, especially not when farming is one of the easiest skills to level up.

[The Button]

Children can only gain skills in grower (because they can retrieve produce grown in your farms) other than that they can haul things around. . . .well some things.  But the only real way for children to gain skill is if they enter a mood and believe me it is possible.  They will instantly become legendary in the skill they use for their artefact just like any other dwarf.

[Dutchling]

They can gain grower (farming) skills if you allow all dwarves to harvest plants (allowed by default). They can also gain combat skills and social skills.

fakeedit: ninjaad 
fakeeditedit: double nin >:(jaaad

[Girlinhat]

Ah, I'd forgotten moody children.  Do note that they'll always be craft moods, because a child has no skill and it defaults to crafting.  Especially with no migrants, all your moods will be children, which gets rather old rather fast.

[Fireborn]

Really only two possibilities that I know of.

Fey moods can produce a legendary child.  Though they won't be able to use it until adulthood.

Farming can skill up by simply gathering the crops.  So, they'll probably gain a fair bit of farming experience in their 11 years of free-range uselessness.

In less legitimate routes, Therapist claims it can turn labors on for children... but I haven't used that feature of it so I can't say how it works.

4 posts while I was posting, cursed [Suspends post: Interrupted by relatives.]

[Reelyanoob]

I've used therapist and am pretty sure I couldn't change anything for kids. I tried. Unless there's a new version that does that.

[Lielac]

Dwarf Therapist + Option to allow labor setting on nobles and kids = wonderful, wonderful child labor.

Said option is found by clicking the color wheel, staying on the first tab in the window that pops up, and checking the bottom box. It is fun and I use it so I have a constant stream of stone mugs/pots and bone bolts coming out of my workshops since kids really have nothing better to do.

[aragaer]

They can also learn certain military skills. I have seen a child learning thrower/marksman when she was throwing something when tantruming.

[MrShovelFace]

dont forget that children, being the real party animals, earn more social skills than any other group (even the college hipsters)

[Musashi]

Yep, they learn fighting skills too. Who cares they grow up to become peasants, if they have instead the skills of a decent warrior?

[GreatWyrmGold]

That's horrible! Who would put children in deadly situations just so the survivors will be better warriors?

(Go ahead, call me an elf. It would help me feel more human...)

[Girlinhat]

Throw a child in a pit with a food stockpile for a floor.  Throw food in via dumping it onto a hatch, the stockpile will keep it fresh.  Add 1 female dog.  Come back 12 years later to redeem your Legendary+5 dodging preteen.

[krenshala]

Throw a child in a pit with a food stockpile for a floor.  Throw food in via dumping it onto a hatch, the stockpile will keep it fresh.  Add 1 female dog.  Come back 12 years later to redeem your Legendary+5 dodging preteen.

Assuming the dog didn't get killed right off by a punch to the brain. (I recall a post about a meat-shield baby that took a stab aimed at the military mother and returned a punch to the gobbo's brain, killing him.)

I'm tempted to enable child labors in my current fort.  Pop cap at 20, Baby cap at 1000/1000%, so the fort grows via internal breeding (assuming they have enough idle time, as I'm discovering).  I've got 32 dwarves right now (after 5 deaths) -- 9 speardwarves, 21 workers and 12 children all below the age of 10 ... and I could really do with a squad of four crossbowdorfs right now.