I've downloaded, but haven't as yet installed the mod which puts a damper on kids asking for a story every five seconds. The problem is not that (fairly normal) behavior, so much as the adults having a burning desire to read to the kids. It should be noted that neither the Social motives meter nor the Wants seem to have any bearing on this obsession with starting a story hour. Is it because I'm playing a "historical" game and don't put TVs on my lots? The kids have a toybox, and actually the adults have one of those computers disguised as a writing station, so if need be, they could easily entertain themselves some other way besides forcing the storybook on each other. Anyhow, if anyone knows of something that attacks the problem from the parent's angle, please let me know. In a crowded household, there's invariably something else that the other party is already engaged in, resulting in the action being (momentarily) abandoned, only to pick it up again a few minutes later with a fresh book, resulting in said books being left all over the house, clogging up spaces reserved for homework, particularly.
One of the behaviors that the storytime-seekers run up against frequently is the act of congratulation. If I had written the game, a sim could only be congratulated if something momentous had occurred - a LTW fulfilled, a child got married, job promotion, that sort of thing. Sims seem to want to pat each other on the back for no reason that I can detect. Yet, when kids bring home an A+ report card, they often go ignored, usually by a parent who is desperately trying to read Goodnight Moon to their sibling, or else congratulating the other parent for... I don't know, just being themselves, seemingly.
So (sorry to ramble): A) What causes congratulations and can they be stopped? And B) How do I get the adults to not initiate the "read to" action?

They don't seem to do this overly often in my game, but then I do keep them busy often by fishing or painting or playing chess. The men are often so exhausted from all the wood chopping that all they want to do is sleep.

But you can nix it with this mod https://www.leefish.nl/mybb/showthread.php?tid=3652

I don't know about a mod for stopping the congratulate, that might be a good idea though.

Yoshi has a mod for fewer dumb congratulations:
https://modthesims.info/d/681294/li...-pack-v4-0.html

Those both look great... this has been a real thorn in my side lately, especially in my historical games where the families are anything but "nuclear". Picture those lots in the Roman subura with a multi-family "apartment" building... books on every horizontal surface, and me having to go into bird's eye view to find where they've all ditched their homework... Anyhow, thanks much!

I noticed in LimeYoshi's pack one about cakes, and that reminded me of another mod I thought would be nice, to do with gift-giving... another of those activities that disrupts everything, and interferes with the hosting Sim's abilities to throw an entertaining party. I usually appoint one of the other family members as the designated recipient, but a "gift table" collection point, like they have at real weddings would be cool. The gift-giving thing is a mod already, though, right? I should probably talk to the author.

I was talking about my historical hoods too since you were. Why do you have homework or school for that matter, I would nix that.

That made me wonder how old public schools were and it turns out that some of them dated back to medieval times.

Medieval schools were for the clergy. Most places school is a recent thing from about 1720-1870 depending on the country. In the US the east had them from 1635 but not until 1883 on the frontier. I do have a school teacher but they have yet to build a school house. Once they do and the children attend simlogical school has no homework. Homework wasn't a thing until the 1905 or there abouts.

I guess it depends what you call the "frontier"... Abe Lincoln went to one of those "blab" schools when they lived in Indiana (for however long he went at all; he was mostly home-schooled, in between farm chores). That would've been 1816 or so; before that I believe they hired itinerant tutors, when they were still in Kentucky, which... sounds just like your situation. BUT I did not know that 1905 fact about homework... interesting. I think I will finally attempt to introduce the simlogical system into my game. It may take a few tries, but hopefully all will go well. Any pointers? I imagine I'd have to appoint one of the household adults as a teacher for a home school, no? Or can one, in fact, hire a tutor to come in? That seems more appropriate for my Roman upper-class families. Or, is there an easier way to just get rid of schooling altogether?

BTW, two fun facts... my great-grandma was one of those 14-year-olds who became the teacher to her former classmates when she graduated from 8th grade, at her one-room schoolhouse in Montana. AND, surprisingly, I worked for a time with a woman who had attended a one-room K-8th school in Oregon, and this would've been in the 1980s! Not sure if she became the teacher afterwards.

That is so cool about your great grandma and her class mates. I attended a tiny school which combined classes but it was 3 rooms and I think about 60 children.

You can run a Simlogical school the way you want. Myself I use the homework book as children don't get up and leave. The other book they get up and leave their work, which while a good idea in principle, for naughty kids and all, they get up and leave too often. I don't use the classroom doors either. I have a teacher teach them to study which once they get that memory I say they have learnt to read. Apart from that I prefer to run my schools to something actually useful such as skills and badges. This can be run on a home lot or an owned com lot and is called prep school. The bus comes at 8am and arrives back at 5pm. No homework. You as the player (when you play the school lot) though can start or stop school when you like.

To home school you pick flexi school. You can do work or not as you like. I am teaching my frontier children to read and nothing more after that. I just have them skill and fish and
... *note this is a sneak peak- the new whittling mod by Gina and LordCrumps. Children plus can use this wood item that teaches mechanical and lets them make a number of small items. There just wasn't enough ways for poor sims to gain mechanical, especially poor medieval sims who couldn't read, so we came up with this whittling idea during a live stream. Not released yet I am trialing out the test item and there are some bugs to work out. There maybe a mod for kids learning charisma at some point too because kids are shortchanged by that skill.

Apologies, BTW, to future readers of this thread for the sharp turn from storybooks into home schooling, but as it's my thread and I did most of the hijacking myself, you'll just have to deal.

Obviously I can read the documentation on the Simlogical site, but one more question: So in a home school... the bus arrives at 8, bringing other kids from the town to the school for you to teach?

Homeschooling there is no bus, your child is already at home. Homeschooling is the family doing school at home.

If you mean you want to play a prep school on your home lot, you put up the student token on the wall and click to enroll children and or teens. You click the start school token and all children materialize nearby. You can set a class, teacher and principle. If the teacher does not live on the lot they will materialize as well. No bus comes. The bus is for when you move onto another house whose children are enrolled in your school. Hope that makes sense.

To continue down this road not about storytime (LOL), I have tried the flexi school, and when it works, it works. Unforch, my SIms seem prone to corruption, especially of the "mysteriously aged to adults" variety. Although I can get them back where they belong easily enough, it's causing problems for my home-schooling efforts. I don't seem to be able to enroll students whose ages have recently been corrected. Perhaps it will take a few saves in order for their in-game info to be properly re-written or whatever? I can enroll some of the neighborhood kids, but the home-lot ones that I've just Blender-corrected to teen age don't show up as teens, at least... not yet. Do you suppose they'll be re-enrollable at some point? I've already re-spawned twice, and it didn't help.

Honestly, my game gets so screwy that I can no longer remember what it was like playing before I discovered the Blender.