What do you do with your child/teens to make that life stage interesting to play? Whether with or without Generations installed.

I personally notice I begin to lose interest in the child stage very fast. Even with Generations installed, there wasn't a whole lot I could have them do, since most of the new things they could (or wanted) to do was dress up in a costume or constantly bug me for a treehouse for which we had no room. Also, my children tend to have spent enough time playing on the xylophone or blocks to gain 3 Skill levels in various things by the time they age up. (Or, in the guitar's case, not until Teen...)

C-A

First, shorten the lifespan. Whenever I start getting bored with a life state, I shorten that age span, sometimes even only to one day.
Second... For children, I like to play with new traits. I just played an evil Sim for the first time & it was so fun playing him as a child. I also like to have them travel around town, sending them on little personal quests, have them meet up with kids around town. If your kid has an imaginary friend, their life state is made so much better. Sign them up in after school classes, even.
Teens can do much more & are more fun. I love having them throw teen parties, egg houses, pick a hangout spot (the teen I'm playing now loves the gym) & work on learning to drive and getting a date to Prom.
It's generally much more fun when you have a backstory, too. Try and celebrate holidays with the whole family, or send the kids trick-or-treating.

I send unwanted and boring children to boarding school. That doesn't make them any more interesting, but at least I can get rid of them... .

I usually make children mean spirited and evil, it's fun to see them raise hell around town. Now I only need a mod to make detonating things available for everyone.

I usually send them to park or some other community lot and see what I can have them do there. I try to find other kids and make them play together. With Generations I can have slumber parties, so I have them pretty much every weekend. Making the kids look cute or pretty also helps to get attach to them lol.

I have this child called Aimee in my household. She has the unstable trait and I kinda play like she has a mental illness. So, play with new traits! Always a good one.

First, I keep the age span shorter for children and teens. Then for the active family I'm playing, I sign them up for after-school activities, make them learn things, and have them meet kids their own age. I love using the chemistry table, because the kids and teens learn the Logic skill, and then get to make all kinds of potions they can then use to raise hell around town. Teens I send to the local hangout, where they can meet their friends and flirt. My flirty, commitment-phobic teens always have multiple romantic interests, which keeps things interesting. Usually I make up back stories, so I get attached to them and want to play with them.

Well I don't use lifespans, I play with aging off. I immediately age the baby up to toddler - for one, it's a boring stage, for another, if the "wrong" gender came and I want them to have a daughter instead of a son, I can change it instantly~ *whistle* Then I age the toddler up to child once it knows the three things that think that raising it was a "success" and I can pick a trait.

C-A

i always want to play realistically and if i get a girl while my sim wanted a boy.. tough shit.. they can try again when the baby is at least a toddler. i used to set the babies age span to 2 days and toddler to 4 days instead of the default for the normal aging, but i switched it back to like.. 3 days for babies and 5 i think for toddlers because i installed the 'better sleeping babies and toddlers' mod and it made it so much easier to take care of them. i like the kid stage, i think they're pretty cute. even as toddlers you get to see their genetics and it gives you a little bit of an idea how they will grow up to look like. it's interesting seeing them 'grow into their faces', too, like if they weren't cute as a toddler but they look way better as teens, lol.

I personally don't do that cause I don't like giving my sims multiple kids just to get the "right gender". Well on a new file right now and I'm playing a homosexual couple. I'll either tear my hair out and go with the MPreg scenario (which I personally hate) or try to get Alien-pregnant. I don't think I ever took care of an alien baby before. (Had one once but sent it away)

C-A

The main reason I don't pay much attention to children sometimes is if I didn't have enough time to enjoy parents, so I spend my time on them. If I don't rush things with meeting-dating-wedding-kids and take some time with those stages, then the first baby doesn't appear too soon, therefore it's awaited and beloved. Also helps if I try to come up with some story - I think carefully about what traits I would like children to have, think about their interests more, plan their outfits with attention to details, make sure there're some families with kids in town for making friends. Also I found it more fun when I let kids to be kids. You know, sometimes I consider childhood as a preparation to adulthood and force kids to build skills and etc, but I realized that this approach makes it worse. So I let kids to have more fun and I'm exploring their kids' stuff I haven't tried yet. To do things you haven't tried yet in game is always interesting.
To sum it up, I'd say: not to rush things, to have a story in mind, to do new stuff.

I make them work!!! I start out my families dirt poor so any kid in the house gets to work - mostly painting and writing. I also get them to play with the toddlers and make them read to them. I skill up all my children in painting and writing and by the time they reach level 10, they're earning more than their parents. Dad is obviously in a full time job and mom is either part time or self employed. When they grow up to be teens, they get a part-time job and still carry on with their painting/writing gig.

As for lifespans, I usually play epic so everyone has long lives except - infant/baby - 3 days - enough time for parents, grandparents, siblings and friends to interact and have pics taken with them then they age up. Toddlers are like 15 days because I want to make sure they learn everything - walking, talking, potty training - I usually fast track them so they learn it fast. Then I buy all the toddler books so that they can read them all then I can age them up. Children and teens are on normal lifespan, YA and adult and elder are max life.

Don't know if any of that makes it interesting but that's the way I play it.

well, i don't always give them multiple children. just as many as i decide. it helps though if they have the lifetime wish to have more kids/a boy.

I always develop a different personality for each child Sim. I never use the same one twice. I also don't stick to regular personality types like geek or tomboy, one of my kids has an AI in her head slowly driving her insane. I have tons of fun storytelling, and keep busy making sure everyone acts within their personalities. This also helps improve their older counterparts.

Oh yeah, the Scumthorpe files thread is good for inspiration on that front. If it weren't for the inspiration MinghamSmith's characters provided I wouldn't currently have a sim who's developing an interest in science because she's obsessed with trying to get her reflection out of the mirror so it can be her friend. Or my previous child sim from another town (now a teen) the paranoid firebug stoner. I plan to get back to playing her eventually so I can deal with her imaginary friend proposing to her after he took her to prom.

And sometimes the older sims just help write the story for you. For some reason Asmodeus' parents seem to hate her beyond all reason, picking on her constantly, but ignoring her twin brother.

I actually extended the Child stage to 12 days (mine is 2 for baby, 4 toddler, 12 child, 14 teen, 30 YA, 23 adult, 2 elder).

If the town isn't too big and I have certain skills in mind, I'll have the child do an after-school class. If I want them to pick up fishing/gardening for the Science career or the Science major in college, they'll go into Scouting, for example. Ballet--they get to learn a few neat moves they can show off to people. Kids that I'm going to eventually give the Handy trait to can play with blocks.

If they have younger siblings, they can give bottles to toddlers and read toddler books with them and free up Mom or Dad.

I play with Epic lifespan, so all my children reach level 10 in painting, logic and writing and contribute beaucoup simoleons to the household budget. I wish they could play musical instruments though.

I don't recall where I found it but there's a mod for that. The gardening part at least.

I play with the child stage lasting 360 days though I can't get the age meter to got that long for the child.Toddlers have 120 days before aging up to a child and babies get 60 days before aging up into toddlers.Teens get 180 days before aging up and the young adult stage is shorter than adult while the elder stage is shorter like young adult.I have to use story progression to disable aging for each sim in cases where I don't want one sim to age and need to let another age.I've also got pregnancies set for 720 hours as my default length and can pause it if I need it to last any longer than that.I've got a Mod that adds more interactions to toddlers and one that lets children garden.I've also got a Mod to disable curfews for children and the older kids which allows me to have them sleep over near their school instead of having to travel a long ways to school and children can also run away from home and not have issues with the curfew.

Yep, no music, but 8-year-olds can write bestselling romance novels. Heh.

And trashy novels. I think Alley's first novel, or maybe her second, was trashy.

I plan my child sims future, since The Sims is a god game (GG, which is also Good Game :P) I can do that. I saw a sim which looked like a good person, edited her clothes because they looked a bit trashy (And by that, I mean she was wearing YA/Adult clothing) and she already had good traits.