The attitude has to come first. The heart will pull the mind into the right place. Hearts are stubborn in the face of intellectualizing. They will answer to love.
I submit that evangelizing children is a red herring here. Jesus’ actual witness to children was most fundamentally with attitude. Children read attitudes very well, in spite of parents’ and even preachers’ best efforts to express “do as I say not as I do.” It sounds as if you may have been addressed by such a preacher. You didn’t see Christ and His love; you saw a religion and the fickle love of people.
I think you mean well, but I think you are wrong.
It is hard for me to think how to persuade you when you lead with emotion over truth. We can agree to set aside the issue of children. You brought it up so I wanted to answer that. As for my own experience, there was no force or coercion, really. Kids want to please. But that is a distraction.
Let’s change your term away from being about emotion and see if we can find a more biblical term.
The parable of the sower. The word of God goes out and falls on different soil. In that sense you have a very biblical principle. Most of the soils/ground were ill prepared for various reasons, but they were unable to receive the truth — except for the good soil. So change your terminology and you have something — sort of.
Still, attitude does not trump truth. All the soils received the truth. Certainly error would not have converted even the person of good soil. The truth is still paramount. Even in the heart ready to receive it, the truth is the SEED. It is essential.
Let me also point out that we can only analyze the truth or error of what is important through the light of Scripture. Otherwise we have to depend on our feelings which can so easily lead us astray.