Sims for Parents

There are many simulators of life, e.g. SimCity and Sims are the ones that most come to mind. Their point is to simulate real life with all its intricacies as much as possible, making decision making, planning, gathering information and similar cognitive tasks the goal of the game, thus teaching players how to “do it right”.

Why not Sim for Parents? In this I mean a simulator for taking care of babies, infants and children. While obviously there is no one “right” way to do it, most parents come totally unprepared for the task. There are obviously “courses” to teach young parents, but in this technological age, why not use the same technology young parents use in their daily lives to teach them about what’s coming?

I propose to develop a game that “runs” a child’s life at its core, from the very first childbirth, through diapers, crying, sleep (or lack thereof), feeding, etc. While obviously, some of the problems are physical, e.g. lack of sleep and breastfeeding, one can come to terms with it via the avatar. For example, integrating this into a Sim environment, the avatar can experience sleep deprivation akin to parents’ and therefore cope with stress in a totally different way. One must also make many joint decisions with the spouse, even more so with children than any other endeavor in their lives. While negotiating and discussing it prior to the child's arrival is often the case, the “real deal” is often a whole different ball game.

I suggest that the game be played by both parents, simultaneously, to practice joint decision making and taking care of the child. This can give parents an invaluable gift that life does not give: several attempts at the same thing, i.e. the parents-to-be can try different approaches in the simulator and see what happens, if they like it, accept it, change it.

Obviously, the AI of the game is problematic, since there are many different theories, practices and approaches to how children develop. To complicate things more, the only agreement among practitioners is that each child is different. However, this can still be simulated in the game. For example, the parents, in order to win, must “raise” several children, each one with a different attitude. The parents thus need to practice both recognizing their Sim-child temperament, as well as how to deal with it.

One can insert a lot of scientific knowledge about child development at different ages, together with common problems that parents have to deal with, e.g. gasses, fever, etc.

The game should also be connected to experts in the field, i.e. players who really want to learn more should be able to connect to practitioners either in their local environment or via web to international experts. Furthermore, as in any game in our age, this can be a social game, in the sense that players can chat and collaborate in tips and attitudes, very similar to the real life.

To conclude, I believe there is enough knowledge and technology to create a realistic simulation of child development and parents’ influence on it. Many theories can be incorporated into the game, as well as many children’s temperaments. This can be an invaluable asset to parents-to-be in encountering problems before they happen in a realistic way.