Ok, so I love the family interactions as they are in Skyrim currently, but they're still in great need of improvement. I love the idea that you can own a dog, a house, and even marry someone. I think it creates a purpose to keep playing, some attraction to the game, you WANT to return home as find someone who was waiting for you. The home and family thing acts as a way to be less objective for a few minutes and more relaxed. I think there is one HUGE element missing... Children. There is indeed an orphanage but obviously you can't adopt. Children in skyrim are sooooo adorable and hilarious i always try to do quests relating to them. I think that some of the following enhancements would improve the existence of children in the game as well as families; (marked the most important with stars)

**Children are adoptable
*Children show all forms of emotion; they can cry when things go bad; and rub their eyes, they could yawn when their tired. They could complain at bedtime.
*Wives able to have more diverse diologues
*Children being more unique and having more diverse diologues
*Children play with your dog in the house
*Children would fight with their siblings and the Mom would actually respond with scolding
Children would greet you and engage in various diologues upon your arrival home
Children would run out to play with other kids in the village
Children AI could receive live information from quest logs so they would know things you'd recently done and possibly discuss it with you
Children say they missed you when they got back
1 more bed in the house for the kid and a bed that you could tell the dog to rest at (dog bed located next to childs)
Children respond to actions of Mom and also interact with them as well as the player and the dog
MORE THINGS FOR THE CHILDREN TO SAY
More clothes for children
Ability to give the kids allowance to spend on food, and other various things like a drum or a knife
Discussion with wife about the kids and how their doing
Abillity to give wife gifts as well as children

Things I like about Children and wives now and how to improve

Wives give you money from sails; fine as it is
Wives greet you when you return; more greeting possibilities that are actually relevant, not just "back from some adventure I assume"
Ability to own a dog and tell them to wait; a bed for the dog in your house, interacts with kids and mom, has personality
Wives pick stuff up that you drop; she actually puts on the clothes you drop
Wives engage in fair amount of dialogue; a system that constantly finds NEW conversation opportunities and possibilities, to keep character interactions FRESH and INTERESTING.

It seems like every1s attaintion is on you more than with others, if you made characters interact with eachother and have just a little bit more character, the game would be more lively.

Please the more responses,the more likely this could be put under consideration. Could a moderator start a poll for me about this? Add to this list of improvements PLEASE , discuss, and argue. I personally would pay good money for a small dlc or a simple patch with these changes. Thanks All!

I'm sure that Fable already does what you're asking for.

indeed it does but Skyrim is unique with its kids. They are so much more lovable and awesome.

And i primarily play ps3 although my bro owns 360 and sometimes lets me play... Fable is 360 i do believe.

They all have the same face! Creepy little things...

Lol i know which is why I suggested the idea of more clothing types for kids to maybe get a little more diversity

They aren't creepy at all.

http://blog.fileplanet.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/ClownChildren-Skyrim1-510x345.jpg

I like the ideas, but as far as order of importance this is pretty low on my list of things I would improve on if I could. Adding a hardcoe mode with no essential NPC's and requiring food/sleep would be my first choice.

Yes that's all called for but this is something that could be just thrown in as a side feature w/ a dlc or a patch. I personally like that idea of yours for food necessity but it might be a [censored] if you wanted to wait to turn in for a quest while the questgiver is sleeping

I agree about adopting children. My heart went out to the poor kids at the orphanage in Riften.

Yay someone who agrees well and i love kids for that reason; they add more emotion and drive to the player to help them and actually pay attaintion to them.

Strange, I haven`t seen anything that gives me an option to marry at all.

Don`t tell me! I`ll find it eventually.

Disagree. All these spoiled brats need their ass whooped. Especially, those guttersnipes in Whiterun.

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HAHA i remember when that old woman called them guttersnipes i thought that was funny

I wanted to adopt all of those

I would adopt them all too and even steal children from other villages, specifically hrefna (felt bad for her) adara, lars, and mila

Ok, dude you are asking 2 much. overall, i like your idea though, you should be able to have kids, especially the sweet lil angels from the orphanage (some of them said they wanted to be dark brotherhood more reasons to adopt them), but give them allowance, just so they could buy a knife??? they say they miss you, dude this is too much if you ask me. But ok, people can dream.

As long as I can burn down my house with the doors locked from the outside then yeah i'm all for it.

I agree with other posts that say the Fable series does all this, but it would be nice to add it to Skyrim. They have some of the elements in other places, just not with interactions with your spouse. You can trade gear with a follower, so why not add an interaction for your spouse, like "I bought you a gift", from there it works just like trading an item with a follower, excpet maybe you can't take from his/ her inventory. I see no reason not to have kids, it would not be to hard to add really, just make a boy and girl child for every possible spouse in the game. The hard part to add would be the house additions for the kids and dog... etc. As these are already set, but I never see my spouse sleep anyway, except once but it was on the bedroll in the basemant of the Solitude house, not even in the main bedroom. I would like to see the houses have more bedrooms than just the 2, especially the larger ones. That can't happen at this point though, but if they added this in a DLC they could open up houses in some other locations, I for one would like to have a nice house outside of one of the major cities... like the Black-Briar Lodge or Golden Glow Estate (not saying I want to own these specifically, but rather have a house outside of a town). Overall, I think it is a good thought, maybe Bethesda will work on it, and maybe we won't see it until Elder Scrolls VI, either way it is not a bad thought. Because Fable svcks compared to most Elder Scrolls Games... I don't know how a character that doesn't talk was able to get married anyway... LOL.

I wanted to adopt the kids at the Orphanage.

I love those little derps.

You're probably asking too much with that list, but I'm with you on most of them. Adding children in the game has definately enhanced the appearance of life in general in the cities and some of the villages.

Maybe the person that made Children of Morrowind will want to work on these as a mod or someone else with equal quality modding.

thanks peeps the more people who agree, the more likely it will be. Honestly at this point, its the only thing I care about everything just works as it is for me. The allowance idea was just a simple idea of being able to be nice and give them something so you feel good when they say thanks and act all happy. They dont actually have to buy anything though. Personally I would be VERY VERY VERY happy if the game treated kids as normal NPCs that you could inflict damage on, pickpocket, and do all that good stuff to. Basically i think adoption is necessary to the family thing they got going and i think you shud be able to adopt every kid at the adoption center and also dorthe (her parents died during "the rescue mission" mission and any other orphanized kids. I think that kids never talk and if they had more dialogue boxes, theyd be even more lovable. I hope a moderator for this forum comes by and starts a quick poll on this. It would make my year (not just day).

AND ONE LAST THINGS!!!!!
THEY NEVER EVER CRY

ALRIGHt, so when both of Dorthe's (from Riverwood) parents died she didnt say anything every again or show any normal emotion, instead she sat on a bench for 48 hours until i left. I guess thats beccause she had nowhere to stay, so i tried going into her house and sleeping in her bed and i did just so, she doesnt own it anymore. So i guess she sits on the bench now 24/7 ALWAYS AWAKE.

I wish that they could cry and rub their eyes to animate their sad emotions which are not present in the game

Like the children at the adoptions place never cried either... have they no souls?!??!?!?!?
hERES AN EDIT TO THE ORIGINAL LIST
*Children show all forms of emotion; they can cry when things go bad; and rub their eyes, they could yawn when their tired. They could complain at bedtime.

I like your list. It would be so cool if there were Orc, elves, argonian and khajjit children!

Also new faces for the kids in DLC, but that's probably asking too much.

I wish we could no more for and with the kids in the game. The few quests we do get involving the kids are not enough. I don't know if I would go so far as to do anything the OP is asking for. But, if it was in the game, it would fine, as like Marriage, this would all be optional.