all kids love GTA.
Personally I really like Lego Rock Raider as far as kid-targeted games go, it's an RTS minus the violence (instead of dying, the personal shield gets destroyed and the man gets teletransported back to the mothership, while monsters just disintegrate into innocuous smaller minimonsters) and also a bit simpler than say age of empires, so it's playable for kids, but it still provides enough challenge and lots of replayability.
It's a great introduction to the genre imho, when you think more violence fits, introduce age of empires II from steam.
Otherwise there's the usual minecraft (good for creativity), sim city series games (pretty intelligent too), and all the tycoon games like zoo tycoon (I didn't like the new one though).
I really don't understand the critique you're getting for this, it's better if the kid is not a total computer illiterate before he goes to middle school. You just have to conflate computer and TV time and set a max limit. Or you think kids should not see any cartoons either?
If the weather is complete crap there's nothing bad in spending it doing other stuff.