Yes. Having just reread the whole series - and with a very critical eye after that incident - their whole development really makes very little sense. If he wasn't prepared to tackle it seriously, which while potentially interesting wouldn't have fit very well in the series, cutting the whole plotline would have been better. Now it just comes across as rampant misogynism.

Nope, this one is when he's all human, shortly before the first time he shape-changes. She's making creepy predictions - in fact, predicting the shape-changing - and he just hurls a spear at her heart. She dodges it, but still.

I must've been a similar age myself. For me the main objection from that perspective, even more than the violence which is hard to avoid in fantasy, is Eddings' outdated take on female characters and romance. Almost every woman in the series seems to have confusing and manipulating men as her main goal, and there's something rather immature about Eddings' most common kind of relationship, where the woman sets her sights on a clueless male character and then manipulates him until he finally falls in love with her. Especially since the women don't usually do too much else beyond that - from a Bechdel test perspective, this series is rather lacking. Polgara is the obvious exception on both counts, but then she's basically a demi-goddess.

I'm afraid it won't just be about when you want your children to read them, but also about whether your children will still be interested. Some children's or YA books have the gift of remaining relevant to every new generation (Roald Dahl, say), but I don't think Eddings' books really fall into that category.