Child Sims Lose Empathy When Asking For Advice?

I'm assuming that the child is sad or something and going to the parent to ask for advice, rather than the Parenthood "ask for advice" popups which are a different thing entirely.

I'd never noticed that, but I can see how, I don't know, "How can I stop being sad about the dog dying?" might drop empathy. Other than that, yeah, it seems weird.

(Obviously, the popups depend entirely on the parent's answer.)

Build up your Parenting Skill. 

Early on, you will only see one option to reply with, and the Values changes it carries will be hidden.

Later, you will see two options. Later still, three.

And, with high enough Parenting Skill, you will see what each option means in terms of Values.

It is usually a trade-off:  Gain Conflict Resolution, lose Emotional Control, or Gain Empathy, but lose Responsibility.

Playing through these from Toddler to Teen, to end with all Values high enough to earn positive Traits at age-up to YA is a challenge, especially at a default aging speed.

But in your case, the matter is simply that your sim isn't sufficiently skilled in Parenting to choose - or even forsee - the outcome of their advice.

From what I understood, the problem is not unforseen outcome, just that in real life it would be absolutely nonsensical to lose any of your sense of empathy from learning to ask for hep and advice from other people. All in all, I find it a little silly one could even "lose empathy" at all, empathy is a thing you are grown into and losing any empathy in real life requires some real hardship and trauma, not just mundane things like asking for advice or arguing over Void Critters.

Oh, I don't know, I can see the idea of losing empathy by Trolling Teh Forums, for example. Like, your teen is training themselves to not care about other people's feelings for their own amusement.

On the other hand, if the OP isn't talking about Parenthood popups and instead somehow kids lose empathy for the interaction where they're sad and "Ask for Advice" comes up, well.  Yeah.  That's kind of weird to me. Is that interaction asking for advice on how to handle their feelngs, which I would expect to increase Emotional Control, or is that asking for how not to feel at all, which I can see reducing Empathy.