Mountainsmith - Morrison EVO 2

Not sure what people here are smoking, but you're getting a lot of bad advice. Mountainsmith has a decent reputation for entry level camping/hiking and that tent retails for over $300. I would get that deal and purchase patching material (just in case - they're kids) and a generic tarp as a footprint. Also, cheap tents for a car camping tent are FINE. There as absolutely no fucking reason to spend upwards of $1k on a kids scout tent. Regardless of the price, the waterproofing is likely to begin to fail after a few years. If you get take really good care of it and end up only using it for 3-4 trips a year you might get double/triple that with a little luck. But do not listen to anyone telling you that you *need* a $500-$1k tent. I spent $700 on my 4-season mountaineering tent. I have something like $6-7k in hiking/camping equipment but my car camping tent was $150-$200. If you really want to be prepared, bring duck tape, paracord, and an extra tarp. You can fix/mitigate almost everything with that combo at least well enough to finish the trip. When they get older, if they get into it, they will probably want tents they can go backpacking with. If that's the case you don't want huge/heavy car camping tents, you want a few 2 or 3-person tents. Back-country camping is where you want to pay closer attention to quality because you're usually miles away from the parking lot and your ability to fix anything is limited to what you carry.

For car camping, I have been happy with my Mountainsmith Morrison. Opens on two sides, which is great for two people. $100 on Amazon. You can backpack with it, but it's a bit heavy for that at 5+ lbs. It withstood high winds in Alaska, winter camping in the Adirondacks (albeit without serious snow load), before finally snapping a pole in the ferocious winds of Patagonia (where I think my much lighter, smaller Big Agnes would have gotten torn up). Also, I never did try it without adding a third-party waterproofer, just in case. After that it withstood some terrible downpours. I recommend starting with something cheap and minimally viable, then seeing what works. People also seem to do well with NatureHike stuff.