The children you have in the game honestly don't bring much to the game play. Once they reach the "toddler" stage, all they basically do is act like hyperactive pets and get in the way a lot. So, I think adding more personality and character to the children will make players more eager to have them. First, maybe have them grow past "toddler". It would take actual time- perhaps even an entire season- but I think the final stage should end somewhere around Vincent and Jas' age. Once they reach the final stage, I think the children should be able to help around the farm. You would need to keep a good relationship with them for this to work. You could ask them to do one small chore per day, such as "Feed the animals" or "Water the crops". It could act as what the spouse already does, but with the children you could choose what you want done, and when it would happen. Finally, I think the children should have their own personalities, and dialogue. There could be a number of 'personalities' for the children that would be selected at random. Some could include "shy personality", "hyper personality", "cheerful personality", or even "adventurous personality". As well, rather than boosting your relationship by simply clicking, you can have full-on conversations with your kids. They can ask questions dependent on their personalities, and the relationship could increase or decrease depending on your answers. Maybe there could even be a couple of cut scenes you could unlock, just like with the normal villagers. I believe adding these features would allow players to actively want to have children and do things with them, rather than avoiding them due to their rather useless tendencies.
I agree and would like to combine this with an earlier suggestion of coop autograbber instead of a machine have the kids do it. Gathering eggs and raising rabbits was traditionally younger person's job on a farm as it did not require a lot of strength. Having the kids grow to tweens and as a "job" they gather the bounty of the coop and placing it in a storage container that can come with the deluxe coop upgrade. This would be a time saver and great endgame content.
Maybe instead of part of the deluxe coop the storage container could be unlocked by having a certain heart level with your kid and then talking to your spouse. Then your spouse could be like, "I think that (child's name here) is ready to help out on the farm more. I have been working on a small version of the shipping bin for them to use." and then you could even set up some sort of allowance system for the kid. This could be a way to celebrate the players birthday and/or the spouse's birthday. Waking up and finding out that your kids gave you breakfast in bed and so you have extra energy or a 1 speed up that lasts the full morning would be really cool. Or talking to your spouse on their birthday and finding out that your kid gave them their favorite gift. It would be really sweet to see some stuff like that. ^_^
I totally agree with your idea, Galaxial. There were many players suggested similar ideas before. (around two years ago) but seems doesn't attract the Dev. attention or it may be too complex to do so....
