I can't tell if you're joking or not, but for me, I have zero interest in "making" my kid like anything. I've played my kid - she's 18 - "This Is The Life", because I think the words might be meaningful to her (and me) but it hasn't stuck. She's more a Queen/Van Halen/Fleetwood Mac girl.
In any event, to answer the question:
I got into Dream Theater with Images and Words, when it came out in '92. I liked everything that they did to one degree or another (I&W is still the holy grail for me; I love Awake, like FII, LOVE SFAM, love Six Degrees... Train Of Thought took a long time to grow on me but grow it has, and I like it today. It's still in the bottom third of the catalog for me, but I like it. It's hard for me to say that "I like this better than that", because it's all relative, but generally, if I'm going to put on a DT record, it's not going to be ToT, nor is it going to be any of the Mangini-era records. They just haven't clicked with me much.
I'd probably rate them like this:
1. Dream Theater
2a. A Dramatic Turn Of Events
2b. Train Of Thought
3. Distance Over Time
4. The Astonishing
But all of them are well below the crown jewels, which as I said, are Images And Words, SFAM, Octavarium, Awake, and Six Degrees.