Selective social learning is thought to play an important role in supporting cumulative culture in humans. Such social learning strategies (SLS) shape how and when observers gather and use information available in their environment. Despite much research exploring how SLSs develop in children, less is known regarding children’s active choice of models. Through a series of experiments, we explore how task (task type, difficulty) and model attributes (age, gender, skill) influence whom children choose to observe and how faithfully they copy what they’ve seen. Children were shown the components involved in construction tasks and then offered a choice of models paired with different types of verbal information about the tasks and the models. Children’s choice of model, justification for that choice, and copying fidelity were recorded. We found that children overwhelmingly chose models most like them in age or gender in most conditions, with some switching to older models, or those of a different gender, when tasks were perceived as more difficult or when the described skill of the model changed. The results provide crucial insight into the motivations shaping children’s active choice of social information, which in turn has direct implications for cultural evolution in humans.