I'm the father of an 8-year-old who is deep into Minecraft and quite entertained/interested in Daddy's EQ99. And just by coincidence (life happens) I had a son about the same age back in 2000-2001 when I was playing EQ the first time around.
Of course the two contexts are not the same in some ways (e.g. the existence of Minecraft) but in my view the fundamentals are the same. My little guy isn't going to be playing his own EQ characters anytime soon, which isn't stopping us from having a lot of shared fun with it. (Same deal with his elder brother back in the day, and the elder guy grew up into a serious gamer who's actually a bit of a celebrity -- a literal world champion -- in a different niche game.)
My little guy is having a blast kibitzing as my low-teens ranger has been leveling up and earning plat in Crushbone. We have our own in-jokes about types of orcs that should exist, I let him pick which orc to pull next, etc. For me that's the level of EQ involvement that feels right and is working for us. Of course YMMV, this is just one gamer dad's experience.
(Currently spending my EQ time on Spotswood, a 14 ranger on Green)
P.S. One change that I recently became aware of is how rich Minecraft has become. My wife figured out how our little guy can now play Minecraft with one of his best chums in their own private instance. (Not called an instance, I forget what it's called.) They started doing that a few days ago and are having a blast, hearing them plan and argue over and build their own little virtual world is a hoot.
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