We got my youngest a Pi for Christmas. It’s been about as steep a learning curve for me as for him (not being a Linux guy myself).
His biggest beef with the Pi these days is performance - “it’s too laggy dad!”
Sounds like you’re trying to use it as a desktop replacement which is not it’s forte. The R-Pi is at its most useful when used as a micro server. It’s perfect for home automation projects, a personal cloud device, robotics, etc, but it’s never going to be great for playing games or other desktop tasks. It’s processing power is about equivalent to a top of the line cell phone from about 5 years ago.