Other than not having a software engineer parent, it reminds me of myself.
I didn't have any interest in computers until my dad bought a PC that came with Age of Empires 2.
Soon I tried to teach myself to code and failed miserably the first few times. While visiting a friend of my fathers (whom I am immensely grateful to), on a whim they gifted me a book that had introductions to ~10 different programming languages (setup, hello worlds + some). Over the next months I went through them one by one and nothing clicked.
When I was around 11, while sitting at a boring camping spot while my parents were off diving, I came to revisit the chapter on Windows batch programming and finally managed to make something work. The low complexity and easy setup helped a lot. By the time we came back from vacation, I had made a crappy note-taking app in batch on that 5kg "portable" 300MHz computer monster which my parents used to log their dives. You have no idea how proud I was about having made something.
I graduated to VBScript from there, then to Java (which came after in that book). For about 5 years I exclusively programmed in Java, in which I also made my first games (worms-like thing with stick figures, pong-like game where you have to hit blocks etc.), even though I had much bigger projects I attempted: for instance A multiplayer RPG in space, where you design your own physically simulated 2D spaceship and fly it around (I never got collisions in my handrolled physics engine working properly, but learned a lot teaching myself to read mathematical notation).
The point I'm trying to make is that they'll probably bounce off the first few times, and that's fine. Don't be overly focused on results. Even all my failures taught me a lot in retrospect. If they give up this time, then maybe a few months from now they'll want to try again, and it'll click.
Another important thing is treating them like an adult: They've set out wanting to do an "adult thing" - dumbing it down and turning it into a colorful kids activity is probably going to dampen their enthusiasm. If they are proud of something they accomplish, you're allowed to be too as a parent, if they fail, don't act like you expected them to and simply move on until they want to try again.
Don't be afraid to start something complex like Unity or Unreal. Even if they are huge complex monsters, getting something basic up and running in them is thankfully easy. Failure is okay.
I didn't have any interest in computers until my dad bought a PC that came with Age of Empires 2.
Soon I tried to teach myself to code and failed miserably the first few times. While visiting a friend of my fathers (whom I am immensely grateful to), on a whim they gifted me a book that had introductions to ~10 different programming languages (setup, hello worlds + some). Over the next months I went through them one by one and nothing clicked.
When I was around 11, while sitting at a boring camping spot while my parents were off diving, I came to revisit the chapter on Windows batch programming and finally managed to make something work. The low complexity and easy setup helped a lot. By the time we came back from vacation, I had made a crappy note-taking app in batch on that 5kg "portable" 300MHz computer monster which my parents used to log their dives. You have no idea how proud I was about having made something.
I graduated to VBScript from there, then to Java (which came after in that book). For about 5 years I exclusively programmed in Java, in which I also made my first games (worms-like thing with stick figures, pong-like game where you have to hit blocks etc.), even though I had much bigger projects I attempted: for instance A multiplayer RPG in space, where you design your own physically simulated 2D spaceship and fly it around (I never got collisions in my handrolled physics engine working properly, but learned a lot teaching myself to read mathematical notation).
The point I'm trying to make is that they'll probably bounce off the first few times, and that's fine. Don't be overly focused on results. Even all my failures taught me a lot in retrospect. If they give up this time, then maybe a few months from now they'll want to try again, and it'll click.
Another important thing is treating them like an adult: They've set out wanting to do an "adult thing" - dumbing it down and turning it into a colorful kids activity is probably going to dampen their enthusiasm. If they are proud of something they accomplish, you're allowed to be too as a parent, if they fail, don't act like you expected them to and simply move on until they want to try again.
Don't be afraid to start something complex like Unity or Unreal. Even if they are huge complex monsters, getting something basic up and running in them is thankfully easy. Failure is okay.