Family IT Guy Podcast

Latest episodes

Showing 20 · updated from the feed

Is Perplexity Safe for Kids? Common Sense Media Rates It Unacceptable Risk

Is Perplexity safe for kids? Common Sense Media tested the AI search tool with accounts set up as a 15-year-old and gave it its lowest rating, unacceptable risk. My opini

Oct 10
5 min

A Screen for the School Bus? A Book or an Old Nintendo DS Instead

I think boredom is good for kids, and a school bus ride is a good place to practice it. A parent in my livestream chat has two boys, six and seven, with no phones or tabl

Oct 8
5 min

My 11-Year-Old Asked to Text His Friend. I Said No.

My son uses his Apple Watch for emergencies, with a short list of family contacts. When he asked to add a friend, my wife and I said no. Here’s why texting friends would

Sep 25
1 min

Teach Kids About Tech and Set Limits: Why I Recommend Both

Someone in the live chat asked why we don't just teach children to use devices well instead of banning them. It's a fair question and I think the premise is sound. My an

Sep 24
1 min

When Your Child Says Everyone Else Has It

A mum wrote in during the livestream. She has two boys, nine and five, she wants to protect them from what is online, and she does not want to do it by frightening them.

Sep 22
2 min

iOS 27 Parental Controls - Make Your Kid’s iPhone Boring

iOS 27 parental controls are out, and in this video I go through what changed for parents and how I'd set up a kid's iPhone with them. First, the new Screen Time feature

Sep 18
27 min

When Your Child Is in Trouble Online, How You React Matters

A parent shares how their daughter’s abusers got around the restrictions on her device. I discuss what happened and why children need to know they can ask their parents f

Sep 18
5 min

Roblox Is an Adult Platform Marketed to Kids

Roblox is an adult platform that is marketed to kids. It does not respect parental authority. It has lied to and misled parents for years, and it has traded safety for pr

Sep 17
2 min

School Requires an iPad. What Can Parents Control?

A parent asks how to control a school-required iPad that their child also uses for homework. I discuss Apple’s Screen Time controls, NextDNS internet filtering, and home

Sep 16
6 min

Meta’s Child Safety Settlement Leaves the Main Risks in Place

Meta’s child safety settlement leaves addictive feeds and messages from strangers available to kids. I explain why I don’t think the agreement addresses the main sources

Sep 14
27 min

Keep Your Kids Safe Online - Weekly Q&A - Sep 2 2026

Sep 3
56 min

How to Report an Online Predator: Two Ways to Get Help

If someone targets your child online, here's who's already looking for them and exactly how to report it. I'm Ben, the Family IT Guy - a dad and a cybersecurity expert w

Aug 31
4 min

Keep Your Kids Safe Online - Weekly Q&A - Aug 19 2026

Aug 20
1 h 15 min

Keep Your Kids Safe Online - Weekly Q&A - Aug 12 2026

Aug 13
1 h 23 min

You’re the Product, Not the Customer (The Paid, Private Internet)

The apps are free, the games are free, email and search and videos are free. But free is not really free. The payment is your family's data, time, and attention. There is

Aug 11
3 min

How to Make Video Games Safe and Actually Good for Your Kids

Most parents feel stuck on video games: ban them and your kid feels left out, allow them and you worry about who's on the other end of the chat. Devyn Ricks has spent her

Aug 6
55 min

Should You Accept or Reject Cookies? What the Pop-Up Does

Every website asks you to accept or reject cookies, and most of us click Accept just to clear the box. Clicking Reject barely helps either. Here is what the pop-up actual

Aug 4
3 min

The Cloud Is Someone Else’s Computer (Where Your Data Goes)

When you save something to the cloud, it does not float in the sky. It goes to a real building full of computers that a company owns, and that company can usually read wh

Jul 28
4 min

It Started With Bacon: How ”Free” Apps Make Money

Almost everything online is free because the internet is a marketing engine, and the fuel it runs on is your family's data, time, and attention. In the 1920s a bacon com

Jul 21
6 min

Bark’s Chief Parenting Officer on Predators, AI, and Keeping Kids Safe Online

Titania Jordan is the Chief Parenting Officer at Bark. She sat down with Ben Gillenwater to walk through what she's seeing in how kids actually use their phones, what sca

Jul 3
1 h 14 min