I too found it hard to bring achievable game making into the hands of kids, but I've found Indie games have had a great renaissance, especially on portables like the Nintendo Switch. These have design spaces that are possible for mortals. Celeste, Death Road to Canada, Enter the Gungeon, etc.

Another angle is that there are some great courses online to use something like Unity and, maybe not write a whole game, but design, sculpt, script a boss battle.