Beginners Box or maybe Ponyfinder, they won't grasp many of any rules but the hours they play with pawns and the map are worth it, also teach one aspect at a time, my four year old doesn't really grasp what he's doing but he sure does love to yell "Shocking Grasp!!" Whenever someone asks what his wizard does :-)
It's made for kids, and his art and character sheets are fun. And it's a great price.
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Take a look at Hero kids
Last I heard Tacticslion was teaching his four-year-old about RPGs.
CALLING TACTICSLION!
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[Insert 5,000 word post about gaming with kids here]
Coming Feb 2016: "No Thank You, Evil!"
Pretty much exactly what you're looking for, albeit in a few months.
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Most RPGs can be 'suitable' for little kids with a little thought. Don't try to teach them all the rules... just the procedures of playing (e.g. listening to the GM, rolling dice, moving figurines) are 'rules' enough for them. Also, play up the emotional angle... scary monster voices, crowds cheering the heroes, et cetera.
All that being said... Bunnies and Burrows. :]
I ran 2-hour solo session for a 8 y/o today. We did character creation and got half-way through a mystery where some mischievous brownies have been adding magical pine sap dust to chocolate and it's making people act goofy. I'm running it straight out of the book.
I would say a 4 y/o is probably still too young for an actual RPG. They can listen to a story and tell very simple ones, but there's brain development that hasn't happened yet that's going to make it difficult. I'd recommend just continuing unstructured "pretend" for now. 6 y/o would be the earliest I'd say to try to start introducing RPG's and I'd go with one specifically designed for kids.
An RPG written for use with kids is going to have already done some of the work on adapting the rules and making sure that they feel simple and easy to use. Little Wizards, for example, has simple rules, plus it's full of examples and text that is very "kid friendly". Not just in it's content rating, but text that is specifically geared towards being interesting to kids.
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My five year old likes to "help" when we play Pathfinder. While he doesn't have a firm grasp on most of the game, he tells us what he wants to do and we translate that into something a little more useful to the rest of the players, which are his older (11 year old) brothers. After a bit he'll leave and just float back and forth, asking to move his character but otherwise letting the game move without him.
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Just make something up.
Rolling dice and telling stories together is the main point, right?
Get them hooked on that part, leave the actual systems for later.
This is another decent one, but I'd again recommend slightly older. 5-8 y/o could get the game, but I think 10+ will get into the long term themes better. The game is inspired by My Little Pony, but it follows something of a Harry Potter arc. It's easy to start out lighthearted, but it starts to add more serious content pretty quick and moves on to a darker tone.
It's "Powered by the Apocalypse" (it uses rules based on the Apocalypse World game), so the rules are pretty simple and help to actually create a story on the fly. It also fits well into mini-campaigns that last around 40-60 hours of play.
I personally haven't played it with kids, my group for Epyllion is all adults. My GM ran it at a micro-convention for a group of 5-10 y/o kids and they had a lot of fun with it. These were all kids of gamers and had at least watched their parents play games before.
It isn't released yet, but the kickstarter was successful and the company has finished their previous projects.
