@UnsayableDecay Hello! I'm sorry you're having trouble with this. These questions that pop up are a part of the Parenthood game pack. They are a design feature intended to add a challenge to the game. You may see the same or similar questions from the child sims or when they are at school. It is not meant to teach the child anything. The challenge is to give you a chance to raise and lower those character values. If you are seeing them very frequently, then there may be a bug causing that.
When you selected one of those options in your image, were you able to then select the promotion option for your adult sim?
