Editing Children

{{Quality|Superior}}
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[[File:child_sprite_preview.png|right]]Most [[creature]]s, including [[dwarf|dwarves]], start out as infants, then after a certain number of years become '''children''', and after that become adults - for dwarves, childhood starts after reaching one year of age, and continues until age 18. 

In fortress mode, some migrant dwarves are [[marriage|married]] and may bring children. Children who immigrate to your [[fortress]] might be any age from one to 17. You can determine the age of any child by viewing their [[thoughts and preferences|thoughts]] screen, which will give you the child's exact age as well as their date of birth. This information is visible regardless of whether or not the child was born in your fortress.

"Resident" heterosexually [[marriage|married]] female dwarves may also give birth to children. This can be stopped or reduced by editing the game [[Settings#Population_and_seed_capacities|settings]] or changing BABY_CHILD_CAP or the STRICT_POPULATION_CAP setting in [[d_init.txt]] directly. Dwarves can even have [[miscarriage]]s (if they become dehydrated, starving, or are subjected to certain types of physical trauma), which causes an unhappy thought for the mother but not for the father.

Much of [[goblin]] society is centered around [[thief|stealing the children]] of other races. The appropriate response to a baby-snatcher appearing on the map is the judicious use of [[magma|dwarven diplomacy]].

Humanoid creatures that are children or babies will graphically appear as adults, but will always be wearing red. Young animals will have a smaller sprite than their adult counterparts.
{{Translation
| dwarven = tilat
| elvish  = imi
| goblin  = tox
| human   = shin
}}
==Babies==
[[File:dwarf_children.jpg|thumb|260px|right|Before they grow up to realize they're in an unwinnable game.<br><small>''Art by Devilingo''</small>]][[File:df_baby_list.png|thumb|260px|right|Many babies seen in the citizen information menu.]]Babies do not have to be born in [[bed]]s, but are born wherever the mother happens to be, which will interrupt most current actions of the mother. The game will play the birth sound effect and [[announcement|announce]] the arrival of the baby. The mother will cancel whatever task she was in the middle of to seek her infant, and then will ''usually'' resume whatever task she was doing before the child was born.  Dwarven mothers can also give birth to twins or triplets, although that is exceedingly rare (1 out of 500), due to their [MULTIPLE_LITTER_RARE] token. Babies are looked after by their mother, who will continue working while carrying the babies.

[[Unconscious]] mothers will not wake up when they give birth – [[sleep]]ing and resting in a [[hospital]] will not be interrupted. Dwarves in a [[strange mood]] will also not interrupt their mood when giving birth – cancelling a mood forces instant insanity, so it is likely coding choice to protect mothers (and children). Imprisoned mothers can grab their child if they give birth while on a chain, but cannot retrieve an infant that is out of their reach, which can cause massive problems, since a mother carrying a child is forced to drop it before being brought to prison.

If the mother is sleeping or otherwise prevented from collecting her infant, the baby will be free to roam as it pleases. An emancipated baby acts in a similar manner to a [[insanity|raving mad]] adult, wandering freely over the map without any sense of self-preservation, gravitating to [[Activity_zone#Meeting_area|meeting zone]]s. It may be fed and watered by other dwarves, and in recent versions, such care happens regularly enough to keep orphans alive. As long as a baby is not within reach of a hostile creature, no harm will be done to it. "Job cancellation spam" can be generated as the baby is seen by the game to be "insane" (example: "Urist McBabyname, Dwarven baby, cancels Clean Self: Too Insane"), but once it reaches childhood (at 12 months), that will stop, and they go about their business like any other dwarven child. While dwarven children are dressed in red, a baby's clothes will be dark yellow.

The sex of a baby is determined upon birth. This means that [[Cheating#Savescumming|reloading a save]] before a baby's birth might get a baby of the other sex.

After giving birth, it is possible for the mother to become pregnant again immediately, and give birth to another child nine months later.

Babies will crawl to burrows when assigned to them.

Any baby being carried by its mother will effectively leech [[food]] and [[Thirst|drink]] from her, causing her to become hungry or thirsty at double the usual rate. This does not, however, count as alcohol consumption – when a baby is close to 1 year old, it will have severe withdrawal.

==Labor==
In [[fortress mode]], children can be assigned the relatively minor labors designated chores, below, but will also perform a few simple tasks on their own, such as:

* Socializing in [[location]]s, perhaps also holding [[performance]]s like singing, or reciting poetry.
* Picking out, and wearing, their own [[clothing]].
* Eating, drinking, and sleeping as necessary.
* [[Farming|Harvesting]] [[crops]], if the "All dwarves harvest" [[standing orders|order]] is on. This will also increase their [[planter]] skill, which only happens very sporadically in the current version.
* When they want to, storing their items, including toys (specifically, they may perform a Store Item in Bin order for multiple toys).
* Children can play with [[toy]]s, such as puzzle boxes or toy axes, and might also play make believe. Both are basically filler jobs without tangible benefits.
* Fighting or running from hostiles, depending on circumstances. (Since children are small, can't use armor or weapons, and all start without combat skills, don't expect them to be effective fighters. Nor, for that matter, can they be assigned to squads.)
* Children can enter [[strange mood]]s,  going about them the same as an adult dwarf. Since they won't have any skills other than social skills, and possibly growing or combat skills if involved in a fight, they will attempt to make one artifact appropriate for a [[bone carver]], [[wood crafter]] or [[stonecrafter]]. They will also gain experience as normal if they complete it, except for possessed moods.
* Children respect [[burrow]] restrictions, including civilian alerts.
* Attempting to [[swim]] if submerged in [[water]].

Children may not be assigned to the [[noble|nobility]]. However, they ''can'' be assigned bedrooms. If no tasks are available, they will gladly loiter in meeting areas, like [[dining room]]s for example, for the duration of their youth. Children born in the fort tend to follow their mother by preference, even (especially?) if their mother is a soldier and is currently going into battle.

Children are also known to be invisible to [[vampire]]s, thus making excellent crime detectors, as they speak truthfully in all cases.

The game will create an [[announcement]] when children reach adulthood, and can be assigned labors. This announcement will not pause and/or center the screen by default.

==Chores==
There is a chores tab under Labor/Standing Orders that allows players to disable/enable the chore tasks, which are:

* [[Feed patients/prisoners]]
* [[Milking]]
* [[Stone hauling]]
* [[Wood hauling]]
* [[Item hauling]]
* [[Burial]]
* [[Food hauling]]
* [[Refuse hauling]]
* [[Furniture hauling]]
* [[Animal hauling]]
* [[Trade good hauling]]
* [[Water hauling]]
* [[Cleaning]]
* [[Lever operation]]

Children don't seem to like chores, resulting in them becoming depressed and moody which can result, obviously, in the children performing various crimes. Turning off chores will help alleviate this issue - you must decide for yourself if the increased mood is worth the loss of their labour.
Consider turning off Refuse Hauling and Burial as well - children tend to accumulate bad thoughts when hauling corpses, which can stress them out too. Also, children tend to start playing immediately after finishing a task, so if you leave Refuse Hauling on, they may decide that the corpse pile is an excellent playground.

==Dwarven parenthood==

In the eighth [http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/df_talk.html DFTalk], it was mentioned that, due to a programming oversight, children's parents can become so preoccupied with finding their children that they can die of thirst.

==Too many children==

If there are too many children in the fort, [[FPS]] may suffer. [[Unfortunate accident|Removing]] children is difficult, as doing so may quickly lead to [[stress]]. One possibility is to [[burrow]] children outside to aid [[thief|snatchers]]. To prevent a large population of children in the first place, it is preferred to set the BABY_CHILD_CAP and/or the STRICT_POPULATION_CAP in the [[d_init.txt]] file or the settings menu.

In longer-running forts, when a parent has more than 10 children of one gender, the 11th onward will merely be referred to as "son" or "daughter". The exception to this is that the youngest will always be referred to as "youngest son" or "youngest daughter".

==Non-dwarven children==

[[Human]]s, goblins, [[Elf|elves]], [[kobold]]s and subterranean [[animal people]] follow the same aging progress of dwarves (born as babies, becoming children at a year old then become adults at eighteen). The same is true for some races of wild humanoid creatures and [[semi-megabeast]]s, though some possess shorter or longer child states than dwarves do, e.g. [[troll]]s become adults at the age of 10. Regardless of how long their child states are, intelligent non-dwarf children are functionally identical to their dwarven counterparts for gameplay purposes.

Young animals possess limited capabilities compared to their adult stages. Infant [[milk]]-bearing livestock can't be milked, young [[wool]]-bearing animals can't be [[shear]]ed, and bird and reptile hatchlings are unable to lay [[egg]]s. However, unlike intelligent creatures, almost all animals follow a different aging progress; they skip the baby stage entirely and are born as children, who become adults at only 1 year of age (though they usually don't stop growing in size until the age of 2). Certain exceptions exist, however, such as [[elephant]]s, who take 10 years to reach adulthood. Savage [[animal people]] versions of these animals follow this same aging progress.

Certain creatures possess no child state to speak of, and are technically adults at birth, having all the capabilities of an adult immediately after starting existing (though most of them are still subject to growing in size as they get older). These creatures include stuff like all species of snakes, [[crundle]]s, [[giant cave spider]]s, [[creeping eye]]s, [[magma crab]]s and most [[megabeast]]s. Inorganic creatures such as [[Gabbro man|gabbro men]], [[Fire man|fire men]] and [[Amethyst man|amethyst men]] also exist only as adults and never as children. If the creature born as an adult is an intelligent creature, they'll be born with generally mild levels in some skills.

Creatures capable of being [[invader]]s can do so regardless of age - as such, you may be attacked by a [[werebeast]] child, or a young [[roc]], [[giant]], [[cyclops]], [[ettin]] or [[minotaur]]. They will behave exactly like their adult counterparts, but will generally be easier to kill than adults due to their smaller size. Such cases are rare, as they require either children being infected by a werebeast and not dying in the process, or for megabeasts to breed, both being particularly uncommon occurrences.

==Bugs==
Dwarf babies can sometimes have a negative age.(''most commonly, -1'') or zero. In this case, they will appear headless.{{verify|Is there an open bug on dwarffortress.mantishub.io?}}<!--{{bug|???}}-->

{{Category|Dwarves}}
{{Category|Relationships}}
[[ru:Children]]