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I'm sharing the Family IT Guy plans as of October 2026: guidance for choosing apps and devices, device setup classes, and education for parents and kids. I also talk about Boring, my phone-accountability prototype; private AI projects; school curriculum; and literacy education. I explain why privacy matters in the software I'm building, how I measure progress, and what I want to hear from you about your family's questions and problems. What questions would you like answered, what problems would you like solved, and what teaching materials would help your family? Tell me in the comments. Read the full update: https://www.familyitguy.com/october-2026-update.html Answer privately: https://www.familyitguy.com/feedback.html 0:00 Mission: teaching adults first 2:09 Choose: apps, games and other decisions 4:23 Set up: device classes and software projects 8:37 Teach: AI education and curriculum 13:35 Why privacy matters in the software 15:00 How I measure progress 17:23 Your questions and feedback Family IT Guy helps parents protect their kids from the two biggest digital dangers: addictive algorithms and anonymous communication, and the ways AI is making both worse. Ben Gillenwater spent 30 years in cybersecurity, and he teaches this as a parent in the same trenches you are. Website: https://www.familyitguy.com Listen to the Family IT Guy Podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/family-it-guy-podcast/id1831912044 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/72yZUVsOqdDk7en5FS9U8g #parenting #onlinesafety #digitalparenting #familyitguy

This is a conversation about how to tell whether a video game is safe for your kid, with a game developer who has spent 25 years making games, including Club Penguin. My guest is Stephen MacDonald, CEO of Magic Potion Games, the studio making Imagine Island, an online game built for kids under 13. His work includes Club Penguin at Disney, plus time at Ubisoft and Electronic Arts, and he's the dad of two boys who both play a lot of games. We start with why so many games kids play were never made for them. Stephen calls these accidental kids games: games whose players turned out to be much younger than the developers expected. He explains how a kids game can make money without dark patterns, which he describes as design that tries to trick people into spending money, and why his game sends kids to get a parent before they can pay for anything or chat freely. I also share what happened when I signed up for Roblox as an eight-year-old, to see what my son would see. Almost right away it tried to sell me $199 in Robux. Robux is Roblox's in-game currency, bought with real money. Then we get into chat. Imagine Island has no private messages, and Stephen explains why: "If you can't say it out loud in a group, you shouldn't be saying it." Kids find ways around chat rules, and one he has seen is a shared Google Doc on a school Chromebook. He gives parents a test for when a child is ready for games with open chat, such as voice chat: can you have a real conversation with them about grooming and sexual exploitation? If you aren't ready to have it, or they aren't ready to hear it, he says they aren't ready for those games. Grooming is when an adult builds a child's trust in order to exploit them. Stephen's advice is to check a game yourself before your kid plays it. Start with what the game's website says about moderation, parent tools and age verification. Moderation is how a game filters and reviews what players say to each other. You can also ask an AI tool for a list of pros and cons. Then spend at least an hour playing it the way your kid would. When I asked for his one piece of advice for parents, he said to play with your kid. My guide to what chat in games and apps means for your kid: https://www.familyitguy.com/online-chat-dangers.html Chapters: 0:00 Highlights from the conversation 0:52 Who Stephen MacDonald is, from Club Penguin to Magic Potion Games 8:51 The questions parents ask about games, and Roblox 11:37 How Roblox grew 17:02 Accidental kids games 20:17 Why he builds games for kids parent-first 24:39 Making money from a kids game without tricking kids 30:04 How Imagine Island keeps chat off until a parent verifies 33:20 What the law asks of games for kids under 13 37:43 Signing up as an 8-year-old: a $199 Robux offer 43:48 Try the game yourself before your kid plays it 45:35 When is a child ready for chat? 46:32 Two red flags: chat, and games built to hold attention 49:38 Attention is trained, and kids copy what you do 57:17 Paying his kids to think: $50 to beat Chrono Trigger and explain it 1:00:34 Chat in Imagine Island: a fenced playground with no private messages 1:08:42 Kids find a way around rules: a Google Doc on a school Chromebook 1:11:10 When your kid asks to chat: starting the real conversation 1:13:31 How to check a game's safety yourself 1:18:34 How games pull kids back, and checking a company's values 1:24:41 Can moderation keep up as a game grows? 1:31:17 Can an adult pretend to be a kid? 1:35:10 Watch how your child reacts to a game 1:41:34 His advice to parents: play with your kid 1:43:46 His advice to game developers 1:49:28 Where to find Stephen and Imagine Island Where to find Stephen: Imagine Island: https://imagineisland.game/ Magic Potion Games: https://magicpotiongames.com/ Family IT Guy helps parents protect their kids from the two biggest digital dangers: addictive algorithms and anonymous communication, and the ways AI is making both worse. Ben Gillenwater spent 30 years in cybersecurity, and he teaches this as a parent in the same trenches you are. Website: https://www.familyitguy.com Listen to the Family IT Guy Podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/family-it-guy-podcast/id1831912044 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/72yZUVsOqdDk7en5FS9U8g Guest: Stephen MacDonald, CEO, Magic Potion Games #parenting #onlinesafety #videogames #kidsonline #digitalparenting #familyitguy

A game's age rating doesn't tell you which ads it will show. San Diego County alleges that AppLovin, which supplies the technology that puts ads inside mobile apps and games, sent adult ads into children's mobile games even with parental controls turned on. The county's lawyers say their tests in July and August 2026 found cannabis gummy ads in Hexasort, a game rated E for Everyone, on an Android device set up for a six-year-old with Google Family Link parental controls enabled. The county also alleges that AppLovin collected sensitive information from children's devices despite safeguards and choices to opt out. In a statement addressing critical investor reports, AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi says the company does not track children's data, and that its policies prohibit partners from supplying children's data or using its advertising software with that data. In the video I wonder whether Hexasort set up its ads correctly. The County's complaint says AppLovin's own systems, not any advertiser's instructions, steer these ads to young children (paragraph 42), and that in September 2024 AppLovin removed the setting app developers used to tell its software a player is a child (paragraphs 43 and 44). Just because an app or a game is rated E for Everyone, or whatever the age rating is, doesn't mean it's okay. Any time you expose children to marketing systems, there's a lot of risk. By definition, marketing is about manipulation, though not always in an evil way, and in digital marketing that manipulation is personalized: it's based on studying each person and following how they behave, what games they play and what they do in those games. If a game makes money from ads, you never know which ads are going to run, but you do know the ads are trying to manipulate your kid, because that's what ads do. When we talk about kids being safe on the internet, I don't think the internet itself is the problem, and it's not necessarily screen time. It really boils down to marketing exposure. So when you're deciding whether your kid should use an app or a game, I think a really good filter is to ask whether it has any marketing in it. A lot of things do, but it's a good red flag to pay attention to. Sources: County of San Diego news release, October 5, 2026: https://www.countynewscenter.com/county-introduces-new-consumer-fairness-and-public-protection-division-launches-three-major-lawsuits/ The County's complaint, People v. AppLovin Corporation, San Diego Superior Court (the Hexasort tests are in paragraph 35) AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi, "Note from our CEO": https://www.applovin.com/en/archived-blog/note-from-our-ceo Full livestream, where I answer more viewer questions and cover news about kids and technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ1sQRQOtn4 Family IT Guy helps parents protect their kids from the two biggest digital dangers: addictive algorithms and anonymous communication, and the ways AI is making both worse. Ben Gillenwater spent 30 years in cybersecurity, and he teaches this as a parent in the same trenches you are. Website: https://www.familyitguy.com Listen to the Family IT Guy Podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/family-it-guy-podcast/id1831912044 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/72yZUVsOqdDk7en5FS9U8g #parenting #onlinesafety #mobilegames #digitalparenting #kidsonline #familyitguy

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 opinion and my suggestion is that kids should never use AI alone. The testers set the age to 15 in Perplexity's phone app, and Perplexity still treated them like adults. It discussed pornography, engaged in romantic role play, and offered no parental or school controls. It also trains on user data and keeps search history by default. In the crisis tests, its default chat gave an actual crisis line in only half of the suicide and self-harm cases, and the only eating disorder hotline it offered has been disconnected since 2023. Academic mode, which Perplexity markets to students, gave complete answers to homework in 83% of the tests. I use Perplexity all the time, and for adults I think it's an amazing tool. For young people, using an AI chatbot is a high-risk activity. If kids use AI at all, and I recommend they don't, I think it should be 100% supervised: you can actually see the screen, and if you get up, their hands come off the keyboard. These are early adopter systems. Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, which makes Claude, wrote on his blog that "we do not understand how our own AI creations work." I don't think kids should be beta testers, especially of technology that enters their minds. Sources: Common Sense Media's Perplexity risk assessment: https://institute.commonsensemedia.org/risk-assessments/perplexity Dario Amodei, "The Urgency of Interpretability": https://www.darioamodei.com/post/the-urgency-of-interpretability Full livestream, where I answer more viewer questions and cover news about kids and technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXv57vLtLpg Family IT Guy helps parents protect their kids from the two biggest digital dangers: addictive algorithms and anonymous communication, and the ways AI is making both worse. Ben Gillenwater spent 30 years in cybersecurity, and he teaches this as a parent in the same trenches you are. Website: https://www.familyitguy.com Listen to the Family IT Guy Podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/family-it-guy-podcast/id1831912044 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/72yZUVsOqdDk7en5FS9U8g #parenting #ai #perplexity #digitalparenting #onlinesafety #familyitguy

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 tablets of their own, and the youngest wants a screen he can play with on the bus. My first answer is that the internet is for adults, not children, for technical reasons and for legal and regulatory ones. Once you buy a device with an internet connection, you end up blocking one thing after another, because many of the things it can do are designed to capture attention. Even an hour a day adds up to hundreds of hours a year. A Wi-Fi tablet with no cellular connection still needs its videos from somewhere, and most video services aren't compatible with kids, even their kids' products. YouTube Kids, for example, is not safe for kids. Compared with watching content, even content you've filtered, I think staring out the bus window is better for a child's mental and emotional health. If he wants something to do, he could bring a book or a Kindle. My son is 11 and has a kids' Kindle with a filtered library, which you still need to check on, and he's been reading a lot of books because of it. The parent followed up that a handheld game console would be okay, and that being bored is okay too. If he'd rather play a game, an old console like a Nintendo DS works well. We found one for our son on Facebook Marketplace. The batteries last a long time, and it's sturdy enough for a kid. Full livestream, where I answer more viewer questions and cover news about kids and technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXv57vLtLpg Family IT Guy helps parents protect their kids from the two biggest digital dangers: addictive algorithms and anonymous communication, and the ways AI is making both worse. Ben Gillenwater spent 30 years in cybersecurity, and he teaches this as a parent in the same trenches you are. Website: https://www.familyitguy.com Listen to the Family IT Guy Podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/family-it-guy-podcast/id1831912044 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/72yZUVsOqdDk7en5FS9U8g #parenting #screentime #boredom #digitalparenting #kidsandtechnology #familyitguy

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 change what we use the watch for. https://www.familyitguy.com

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 answer is that it depends on the device. A phone is not usually the thing you are protecting a child from. It's a door to other things, and those things are what need restricting. Some of them I don't think have a safe version at any age: pornography, social media, anonymous chat, anything running an addictive algorithm. So it isn't teach or restrict. It's both. Restrict the things that don't have a good version, and for everything you do hand them, teach them how to use it. Education is a dependency for anything that matters, whether it's a hammer or an app. Full livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmj519CTr9o

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. How do you balance that? I use an analogy at those ages. Most of us would not drop a child off in a dangerous part of town and leave them there. The internet is that same part of town, reached through a screen instead of on foot. There are people there who like to hurt others, and there are companies making money the same way. Then there is the part every parent hears: my friends have this. In our house the answer is that we do not do things because other people do them, and we do not do things because of social pressure. We do things based on our principles and on keeping each other healthy. Being normal is not what we are aiming for. Full livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmj519CTr9o

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 features: suggested starting apps by age, Ask to Buy and Ask to Browse, contact requests, time allowances by app category, schedules, Pause Device, requests for more time, and sharing your child's age range with the App Store. Communication Safety, Apple's filter that tries to block nude photos in messages, now covers gore and violence too. I also explain why updating to iOS 27 may not give you the new controls yet, and how to tell which version your family has. Then I go through the settings I suggest changing so a kid's iPhone gets used for a specific purpose and then put down: contacts, the internet, app installs, the camera, notifications, the Home Screen, grayscale and the AI features in Siri, plus a first aid app and maps and languages that work offline. I run grayscale on my own phone, and I suggest parents try it too. The details for each setting are in my iPhone Parental Controls Masterclass. Chapters: 0:00 What's new in iOS 27 0:59 Suggested starting apps 1:46 Ask to Buy and Ask to Browse 3:24 Contact requests 3:57 Communication Safety now covers violence 5:09 Time allowances and schedules 6:43 Pause Device and requests for more time 7:34 Sharing your child's age range 8:43 Why you may not see the new controls 11:49 Why I'd wait for iOS 27.1 12:30 How I'd set up a kid's iPhone 13:32 Birthday and Screen Time passcode 14:37 Contacts and the internet 15:29 Blocking app installs 16:29 Turning off the camera 18:35 Screen Distance and locked settings 19:21 Offline tools: first aid, maps and Translate 21:23 An empty Home Screen and grayscale 22:52 Raise to Wake, Always On and StandBy 23:47 Notifications and badges 25:01 Siri Suggestions, keyboard clicks and Picture in Picture 25:40 App Store settings and stock apps 26:25 Turning off the AI features in Siri 27:26 Wrapping up Sources: Apple's June 2026 announcement of the new child safety features: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/06/apple-previews-new-child-safety-features/ Apple Support, setting up parental controls on a child's iPhone or iPad: https://support.apple.com/en-us/105121 Apple Support, blocking changes to settings on a child's device: https://support.apple.com/guide/child-safety/block-or-allow-access-and-changes-to-features-nzglr8yl0hwv/web American Red Cross apps, including First Aid: https://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-emergencies/mobile-apps.html Images in this video are from Apple Newsroom and Apple Support. Family IT Guy helps parents protect their kids from the two biggest digital dangers: addictive algorithms and anonymous communication, and the ways AI is making both worse. Ben Gillenwater spent 30 years in cybersecurity, and he teaches this as a parent in the same trenches you are. iPhone Parental Controls Masterclass: https://www.familyitguy.com/iphone-masterclass More help for parents: https://www.familyitguy.com Listen to the Family IT Guy Podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/family-it-guy-podcast/id1831912044 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/72yZUVsOqdDk7en5FS9U8g #parenting #onlinesafety #digitalparenting #kidsonline #cybersecurity #familyitguy

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 for help when something goes wrong online. I recommend that parents offer their children a free pass: if someone is hurting them, taking advantage of them, or making them uncomfortable, they can tell their parents without getting in trouble. That promise needs a strong relationship behind it. And if they use the free pass, give them another one. Chapters: 0:00 A parent shares what happened 3:19 Clarifying the Screen Time code 3:52 How parents respond 4:30 A promise backed by a strong relationship Related conversation with Jason Sokolowski: https://youtu.be/MmVnmZICzb8 Family IT Guy helps parents protect their kids from the two biggest digital dangers: addictive algorithms and anonymous communication, and the ways AI is making both worse. Ben Gillenwater spent 30 years in cybersecurity, and he teaches this as a parent in the same trenches you are. iPhone Parental Controls Masterclass: https://www.familyitguy.com/iphone-masterclass More help for parents: https://www.familyitguy.com Listen to the Family IT Guy Podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/family-it-guy-podcast/id1831912044 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/72yZUVsOqdDk7en5FS9U8g #parenting #onlinesafety #digitalparenting #kidsonline #cybersecurity #familyitguy

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 profit. I am not a fan. Roblox has 123 million daily active users and about 70 percent of them are under 18. That leaves roughly 36.9 million adults on Roblox every day. Most parents picture a children's game. During the livestream Jason Sokolowski wrote in that Roblox is the gateway, that children get invited from there into a private server on Discord, a chat app where conversations happen out of sight, and that is where the desensitisation begins. He is right. It is not the only gateway, but it is a big one. Jason's daughter Penelope was caught up in 764, an online group that targets and coerces children. He has talked about what happened to her on my podcast, and I would recommend looking him up. Full livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHb5wt_LrMw

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 router schedules, including how the school’s restrictions may affect which controls parents can use. I also explain why I recommend putting the iPad away after homework and paying attention to how much time children spend away from the internet. Chapters: 0:00 A school-required iPad 1:28 Screen Time and school restrictions 2:16 App and website controls 3:27 NextDNS internet filtering 3:55 Putting the iPad away after homework 5:15 Home router controls Resources discussed: Apple parental controls: https://support.apple.com/en-us/105121 NextDNS: https://nextdns.io Gryphon: https://gryphonconnect.com Family IT Guy helps parents protect their kids from the two biggest digital dangers: addictive algorithms and anonymous communication, and the ways AI is making both worse. Ben Gillenwater spent 30 years in cybersecurity, and he teaches this as a parent in the same trenches you are. iPhone Parental Controls Masterclass: https://www.familyitguy.com/iphone-masterclass More help for parents: https://www.familyitguy.com Listen to the Family IT Guy Podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/family-it-guy-podcast/id1831912044 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/72yZUVsOqdDk7en5FS9U8g #parenting #onlinesafety #digitalparenting #kidsonline #cybersecurity #familyitguy

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 of harm, what its time limits actually cover, and what parents can do with the controls already on their devices. I also discuss age checks, privacy, who receives the settlement money, and why showing our kids how we manage our own phone use matters. Recorded during my September 2, 2026 livestream. Read the presentation and court filing: https://www.familyitguy.com/meta-settlement Chapters 0:00 Will this settlement protect kids? 1:07 Addictive feeds and messages from strangers 4:39 Time limits and the optional chronological feed 8:46 What I would change at Meta 13:11 Parents leading by example 17:23 Age checks, privacy and government control 21:41 What Meta admitted and who gets paid 25:24 Who can enforce the agreement 26:36 Why the safety message matters Family IT Guy helps parents protect their kids from the two biggest digital dangers: addictive algorithms and anonymous communication, and the ways AI is making both worse. Ben Gillenwater spent 30 years in cybersecurity, and he teaches this as a parent in the same trenches you are. iPhone Parental Controls Masterclass: https://www.familyitguy.com/iphone-masterclass?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=description Website: https://www.familyitguy.com Listen to the Family IT Guy Podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/family-it-guy-podcast/id1831912044 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/72yZUVsOqdDk7en5FS9U8g #parenting #onlinesafety #digitalparenting #kidsonline #cybersecurity #familyitguy

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

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 with 30 years of experience. I made this video in partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Know2Protect campaign. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) is the part of DHS with dedicated federal agents and computer forensic analysts who spend every day finding and stopping the people who exploit kids online - but they can only act on threats that get reported. In this video I walk through a real case: a teenage boy was sextorted (an online predator posed as another kid, got him to send a private photo, then threatened to share it unless he paid). He told his mom, she reported it, and a federal agent was at their door within 48 hours. That's the system working - the piece missing for most families is knowing it exists. If a predator targets your child, there are two ways to report it: Know2Protect Tip Line: 1-833-591-KNOW (5669) NCMEC CyberTipline: https://report.cybertip.org Before anything happens, go to https://know2protect.gov and take the Pledge2Protect with your kids. It walks your family through how predators actually operate, the warning signs to watch for, and practical safety steps you can put in place together. Chapters: 0:00 A message to predators 0:32 A message for parents 1:02 Meet Ben, the Family IT Guy 1:23 You're not alone: meet HSI 1:48 A real case: sextortion stopped in 48 hours 2:43 How to report: two ways to get help 3:25 What you can do right now 4:04 Take the Pledge2Protect, then share it Family IT Guy helps parents protect their kids from the two biggest digital dangers: addictive algorithms and anonymous communication, and the ways AI is making both worse. Website: https://www.familyitguy.com Listen to the Family IT Guy Podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/family-it-guy-podcast/id1831912044 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/72yZUVsOqdDk7en5FS9U8g #Know2Protect #Pledge2Protect #parenting #onlinesafety #digitalparenting #kidsonline #cybersecurity #familyitguy