Faulty logic in Apple ID password change process

Hi. My spouse changed my 11-year-old son’s Apple ID password. She cannot remember it now, and did not tell my son the password. This is a problem as we are trying to set him up on a device.

The process to change the password at I forgot.apple.com has a verification code sent to my iPhone. That works fine.

But then, the process wants me to verify my son’s icloud email address with a verification code sent to that same email address.

And that does not work fine.

Because the whole point of this process is to recover my son’s account Apple ID by changing his password. How am I supposed to retrieve a verification code from an email account that relies on the same forgotten password?

Worse yet, when you indicate you cannot use that email address to verify (because I do not have the password to set it up) you get a thank you message that says “In a moment, we’ll contact you at (my son’s @icloud.com address) to let you know when you … will be able to reset your password.”

How is that helpful when I have already indicated I cannot use that address to verify? How am I supposed to access that email account without the password?

This process seems to have faulty logic.

It seems I now have to wait 11 days to get a text at my phone with instructions on how to change the Apple ID password. Any ideas on how to get this done faster?