Family IT Guy Podcast

Family IT Guy
  • 5.0 (10)
  • Parenting

Ben Gillenwater helps families protect children from digital dangers, bringing 30 years of cybersecurity expertise to the parenting journey. His background includes working with the NSA and serving as Chief Technologist of a $10 billion IT company, where he built global-scale systems and understood technology's risks at every level. His mission began when he gave his young son an iPad with "kid-safe" apps—only to discover inappropriate content days later. Despite his deep technical background, Ben realized that if protecting children online was challenging for him, it must be even more difficult for parents without his expertise. Through Family IT Guy, Ben creates videos and articles that help parents and kids learn how to leverage the positive parts of the internet while avoiding the dangerous and risky parts. His approach bridges the knowledge gap between complex technology and practical family protection, making digital safety accessible to everyone.

  1. 7h ago ·  Video

    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 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

  2. 2d ago ·  Video

    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 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

  3. Sep 25 ·  Video

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

  4. Sep 24 ·  Video

    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 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

  5. Sep 22 ·  Video

    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. 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

  6. Sep 18 ·  Video

    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 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

  7. Sep 18 ·  Video

    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 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

  8. Sep 17 ·  Video

    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 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

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
10 Ratings

About

Ben Gillenwater helps families protect children from digital dangers, bringing 30 years of cybersecurity expertise to the parenting journey. His background includes working with the NSA and serving as Chief Technologist of a $10 billion IT company, where he built global-scale systems and understood technology's risks at every level. His mission began when he gave his young son an iPad with "kid-safe" apps—only to discover inappropriate content days later. Despite his deep technical background, Ben realized that if protecting children online was challenging for him, it must be even more difficult for parents without his expertise. Through Family IT Guy, Ben creates videos and articles that help parents and kids learn how to leverage the positive parts of the internet while avoiding the dangerous and risky parts. His approach bridges the knowledge gap between complex technology and practical family protection, making digital safety accessible to everyone.

Information

  • Creator
    Family IT Guy
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    80
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Family IT Guy Podcast

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