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I first would like to say how refreshing it is to see a family spending time together. I personally think it is wonderful that you all role play together. It builds creativity, helps hone math skills, reading, and other skills they will use in life.
Now to answer your question. I would advise you keep it to as few books as possible. The nice thing that Pathfinder did is they put almost everything you really need right in their core book.
Follow the "KISS" method, keep it simple stupid. I found that kids, like you said like the battles, but also like to roll dice. So keep the battles moving quick so the children don't get bored while waiting for their turn. Its the GM's job to keep everyone involved and interested.
As for basic party make up that really shouldn't matter, let the kids play whatever character they want as long as they can do it from the CORE BOOK. I have played in a group where all 5 people playing were rogues, the nice thing with Pathfinder is it allows for variety. Each rogue basically filled a niche, one was strength based and was the front line guy, another was a dex based fighter type and used finesse over strength, another used daggers, and we all carried wands of cure light so we could all use the skill "use magic device" to use them to heal.
It is the GM's job to make it work. But by the sounds of it you are kind of new to Pathfinder too so I would advise the following party composition:
Fighter (Includes: Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian, or Monk)
Cleric
Rogue (Includes: Bard but I advise to stay away from this class as a beginner)
Three very straight forward simple classes. The cleric fills the healing need and would be the 2nd best fighter in the group, the rogue fills the trap finding need, and of course the fighter fills the meat shield need. We currently playing in 3 party group and this basically covers most of the needed situations that arise.
Now as the children gain more experience and want to expand their abilities, you could allow them to multi-class so the rogue could eventually become a rogue 5th level/ wizard 3rd level for example. This would open up the children to another class and allow them to learn more of the game.
As for skills which play a very important part the above class make up covers all the knowledge skills except geography and nature. But any class can take any skill they just may not be as proficient with it.
So from my experience the following knowledge skills are most common:
Knowledge- History
Knowledge- Arcane
Knowledge- Local
Knowledge- religion
The nice thing about being a GM is you can adjust to your group, you can usually switch some of the knowledge skills for another so instead of religion if they don't have it try knowledge planes. Or for history try switching it out for knowledge local the key is "KEEP THE GAME interesting" so do what needs to be done to keep the action going.
Other common skills are(no specific order)
Perception
Linguistics (Just a fun one not always taken)
survival
disable device
heal
appraise
acrobatics (Nice one to have as a rogue)
Spellcraft (Goes with knowledge arcana and detect magic)
Stealth
Diplomacy or Intimidate
Bluff (Nice for rogue again) works with faint feat
The main thing to remember is to have fun and as the GM your allowed to fudge rules to keep game interesting and fun.
Good luck to you and your family and hope this helps.
Oh one last thing to remember since their are only 3 people in this adventuring group. Remind them to be patient, they can always run away from a fight but should never rush into one. Also remind them about team work for that goes a long way in helping group to survive at times.