I was inspired to post this question here because, unfortunately, due to a weird glitch with a custom content bed, my sims were forced into keeping an unwanted baby... the baby grew up with the ugliest/scariest face so I decided to move him into a shed out back to see if he could retain some independence outside of the main household. Mind you, I'm providing him with the basic stuff he needs (including a hacked stove/fridge, and a bookshelf for grades and fun), but I feel bad for him anyway. Not to mention, his social has completely tanked and now he's spamming the people in the main house with Scare and Insult interactions. Completely warranted on his behalf, but also makes normal gameplay super hard unless I release him back into the main house to go socialize. I was kinda hoping to slowly build him a little mansion of his own in the back yard but the social need being tanked is kinda ruining those plans.

I remember that people have made tons of hacked content to support kids living on their own, but at the moment I can't seem to find very much. I already have the hack for allowing kids to pay bills, I have hacked stoves/fridges they can use on their own, and of course I have my sim child study diligently so he doesn't get sent to military school. My question is twofold... a) what kind of other cool hacked content still exists aimed specifically at making child sims less useless on their own, and b) is there anything specifically for keeping up the social need? I know the child sims can call others on the telephone, and I think the dogs and cats also provide a bit of social, but I feel like there must be SOMETHING they can interact with to raise their social without it being too hacky. Am I wrong?

If you have Makin' Magic, you could use the child charm that makes the child grow into an adult, then use Simlogical's Move-out Fern to have him simply move into to another household or move out of the neighborhood altogether.

Sims Wiki's entry on Child Charms

Simlogical's Move-Out Fern

I forgot all about that charm but I do have the one birthday cake hack that also functions the same way. I also have the move out bush as well but I was hoping to see how long I could play with the kid in his little shack out back, lol. So far aside from the social need tanking really badly, everything else is mostly okay. I might just end up splurging and getting him a pet (and making the shack a bit bigger to accommodate). Thank you for your advice though, the move out fern is a pretty smart idea and I wasn't even thinking about it until you mentioned it!

You could use my Social Computer, which increases Social as well as Fun when sims play games, since it assumes that they're playing online with their friends. You can find it at http://corylea.com/Hacked%20Electro...20Sims%201.html.