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tw1nhzemw989's avatar
tw1nhzemw989
Newcomer
6 hours ago

Life Skills for Special Needs Young Adults

Hello.  I am new to The Sims and I have a special needs teen who is becoming a young adult.  There has to be a massive community of us wondering if there might be a version of Sims where we can benefit from for teaching life skills and routine social encounters.  

Things we are looking for include errands at different types of stores, taking cabs or public transportation, doing routine chores, pet care, using good manners, cooking, safety, mild interpersonal challenges, polite social interactions, and perhaps interactions with librarians, police, firefighters, dentists, and doctors. 

Things we are hoping to avoid is material of complex relationship interactions, suggestive or mature, combativeness, and introducing ideas of mischief that could get an adult with autism, social, or judgment-making deficits from getting into potentially serious issues. For example, definitely do not want to train impressionable minds how to make firemen come to our houses!  

Can you suggest a version of The Sims that would be ideal for just teaching life skills, family, and community interactions?  Maybe there are settings that can be adjusted or an expansion pack that would suit our needs?  If not, what if there was an "expansion pack" that simply trimmed the more complex relational features of a base game?  We can really see the potential value of Sims for allowing those with special needs to process, practice, and repeat grown-up responsibilities, self-care, social situations, and how to respond to safety issues.  

Thank you!

Special Needs Dad

1 Reply

  • tw1nhzemw989​  Standard Sims games have always included mischief and the ability to mistreat other sims, either through your own sim or directly as a player.  There are some simpler spin-offs, but those don't include the life skills you're looking for either.  And none of the games have everyday interactions with various kinds of public servants.  (A sim might get scolded by the fireman for being careless, or a teen could get caught out after curfew, but they can't just just walk up and say hi.)  But you might be able to get some of what you're looking for.

    Rather than avoiding negative interactions, how would you feel about labeling those as negative so your kid could see them as such?  For example, in Sims 3, most social interactions are under a general category: Friendly, Funny, Mean, Romantic, Special (for options specific to the current sim's traits).  An interaction that goes with a sim's traits has an icon next to it showing that trait; an interaction that contradicts a trait has that icon with a 🚫 over it.  So you could give a sim the Friendly trait and as a result have all Mean interactions labeled as not okay.

    Sims 3 has stores for shopping for groceries and books; there's a No Fridge Shopping mod that prevents "buying" the ingredients for a meal from the fridge (and otherwise there's a price on every meal for which the sim doesn't have all the required ingredients).  The vanilla game mechanics are rudimentary—no need to buy bread or milk or other basics—but mods can add that too.

    Sims take their cars or a cab by default, without having to pay, and I think only Sims 1 required actually calling a taxi or car service.  Mods can make taxi rides cost money.  Sims 3 has a subway as well.

    Pets are an expansion in all the main games.  They're controllable in Sims 3 but not in 4, so you have to guess what they need.  Feeding them and cleaning the litter box are required; other types of care are optional but have consequences if avoided.

    As for romance, it's blocked between teens and older sims, but you can't block it further without mods.  That's the case for all the main games, except where there's no mod at all to block romance.

    If you're serious about this, I would suggest buying a month's subscription to EA Play and installing Sims 1, 2, and 3, then having a look around.  Sims 4 is free, of course.  Sims 3 comes with an expansion (Late Night) that is probably not what you want but that doesn't need to be installed.  That wouldn't give you a full picture of what you could achieve with mods and certain expansions, but you'd at least get a feel for the environment and decide whether any of these is what you're looking for.

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