eish - is there a list for something that can be played for kids with short attention spans?
Very young kids: Animal Upon Animal
Older kids, really short attention span: Love Letter
Older kids, somewhat less short attention span: Carcassonne, Sushi Go Party (which is a gateway drug to the similarly-played, confusing-sounding-rules-but-actually-easy-in-practice Seven Wonders)
[EDIT] if others list suggestions there's a high likelihood that King of Tokyo will be on the list, but I want to preemptively counter that by noting it's a well-regarded, kid-friendly-themed, simple game that I've entirely failed to find any fun in, and can't even fathom how others find fun in it, though I believe them when they claim that they have—I just don't understand. [EDIT EDIT] Point is, watch a Youtube play of it before committing. Actually, probably do that for any of these.
They have to be literate beyond the Uno level to play Fluxx. You have to pay attention continuously, which is either good or bad... Fluxx is highly random.
No Thanks is the kind of highly abstract game that a five year old can play without understanding any strategy thereby horribly losing yet drunken adults can turn it into something like ultra high stakes poker complete with somebody whipping out a calculator to determine the optimum bluff based on extensive card counting and possibly faulty beliefs about statistics. Its mostly a dumb memory game with at least two or three strategic levels of statistical analysis above it to determine optimal bluffing patterns. This game can be carried to excess by adults at thanksgiving ... yet chilled out adults or kids can have fun. Its kinda like monopoly in that the odds of a yelling match breaking out are anomalously high.
Red7 is an exercise in creating complexity out of not much, for better or worse. Too much complexity for really little kids. Middle school is OK.
The kids have to be sneaky to place Sheriff of Nottingham. Watching people get away with, or not get away with smuggling keeps the attention pretty well. You're allowed to give the Sheriff "advice" which means the kids end up screaming thru the entire game.
Hey Thats My Fish is pretty good above toddler eating the pieces but below later elementary school. Sorta area control mixed with a memory game.
My experience with minecraft indicates kids have an attention span of about sixteen hours if they enjoy what they're doing. If they don't enjoy what they're doing their attention span isn't a millisecond longer than your average fifty year old, but they are much more brutally honest about their lack of interest than your average fifty year old. My wife's attention span for Caverna or power grid is about the same as my teen kids, she's just nicer about tolerating Dad's game night than the kids are.
I see a general pattern above that kids will sandbox a game if they're too young to understand it and the sandbox is fun enough.
Just sort that by rank to get an ordered list of the best children's games.
My personal recommendations would be: Rhino Hero, Battle Sheep, Dr. Eureka, Coconuts, Can't Stop, Kamisado, King of Tokyo, Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, Formula D, We Didn't Playtest This At All, Smash Up, Magic Labyrinth, Incan Gold, For Sale, Port Royal, and Escape!. I have fun with all of these as an adult, too.
Ordered by my estimate of length/attention, and all fine for a 10 year old:
Battle Sheep, Diamant, Forbidden Island, Splendour, Carcassone.
Forbidden Island is a cooperative game (everyone wins, or everyone loses), the others are competitive.
I generally find TableTop to be a well-curated source of games; games that look fun on the show have always gone over well for me.