Family IT Guy Podcast

My 11-year-old builds his own video games with an AI assistant. Here are the rules that make it safe.   This is the first time I've talked about this publicly. He works on a Mac Mini connected to a TV I can see from my desk, and there are two hard rules: it only runs under my full supervision, and he has to ask me every single time. On top of watching with my own eyes, I built an AI tool that watches his AI and reports back to me, in case I miss something.   I tuned his builder so that instead of just handing him a finished game, it explains what it's doing and helps him learn as he goes. He's on his second game now. I spent 30 years in cybersecurity and thousands of hours with these systems, so I know how to supervise them, and I want to turn this into something other families can use safely. A parallel Business Insider essay by another parent describes the same thing happening in her home.   Chapters: 0:00 Kids are building games with AI 0:39 My son is doing the same thing 1:10 The supervision rule 2:35 Built to teach, not do 3:37 What's next   Sources: Business Insider, a parent watches her 11-year-old build a game with AI: https://www.businessinsider.com/11-year-old-built-his-own-video-game-with-ai-2026-7   From the weekly Family IT Guy livestream. Watch the full stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLIhT9TId2Y   Common Sense Media tested Perplexity, an AI search tool, with accounts set up as a 15-year-old and gave it its lowest rating, unacceptable risk. What they found, and why I think kids should never use AI alone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx-omAJAlT4   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.   Free preview, Lock Down Your Kid's iPhone: https://courses.familyitguy.com/iphone?flow=free-preview&utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=description   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

AI is already in most kids' schools, usually with no training for the kids or the teachers. Here is where I draw the line for my own family.   My position is that parents need to learn AI first, before their kids do, because you can only really teach something you understand from experience. If your kids are not using AI yet, I would not introduce it. If they already are, because a school required it, then the job is to teach them how to use it well and avoid the harm.   I explain why this matters for a developing brain. Dr. Daniel Amen, who has done more brain scans than anyone, describes the brain like a muscle: use it and it grows, outsource your thinking and it weakens. For a kid whose brain is still forming, handing the thinking to a machine works against the development itself. I also cover the upside, because used the right way these tools can teach and tutor instead of doing the work for you.   Chapters: 0:00 AI is already in schools 1:38 What it does to a developing brain 3:33 Parents learn first 4:25 If they're not using it, don't start 4:44 The right way to use it   Sources: Most US high school students now use generative AI for schoolwork (College Board, 2025): https://newsroom.collegeboard.org/new-research-majority-high-school-students-use-generative-ai-schoolwork   Common Sense Media tested Perplexity, an AI search tool, with accounts set up as a 15-year-old and gave it its lowest rating, unacceptable risk. What they found, and why I think kids should never use AI alone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx-omAJAlT4   From the weekly Family IT Guy livestream. Watch the full stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLIhT9TId2Y   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.   Free preview, Lock Down Your Kid's iPhone: https://courses.familyitguy.com/iphone?flow=free-preview&utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=description   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

Bark Phone or Watch, $30 off: https://www.familyitguy.com/go/bark/direct?src=yt-gNnx6Z-TK7w Click my Bark links to automatically apply discount code FAMILYITGUY for $30 off a Bark Phone or Watch, or enter the code at checkout. I earn a commission at no extra cost to you, and that supports Family IT Guy's mission to set kids up for success.   If you want a first phone for an 11-year-old that does calls and not much else, you have four real options.   I go through all four: a cellular smartwatch, an old-style dumb phone, the Light Phone, and a tamper-proof internet phone. Then I explain how to strip a normal iPhone down so it has no browser, no App Store, and no camera, using a setting called assistive access mode that turns the phone into a few big simple buttons.   Which one is right depends on two questions: do you need to see your kid's location, and do you want the device to grow with them over time. I tell you which way I went for my own son and why.   Chapters: 0:00 Four options 0:22 Option 1: a watch 1:31 Option 2: a dumb phone 2:17 Option 3: the Light Phone 2:57 Option 4: a tamper-proof phone 3:37 The whitelisted iPhone   From the weekly Family IT Guy livestream. Watch the full stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLIhT9TId2Y   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.   Free preview, Lock Down Your Kid's iPhone: https://courses.familyitguy.com/iphone?flow=free-preview&utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=description   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

Choosing a phone or device for a very social tween means fighting two fears at once: that they'll be left out, and that they'll be exposed.   My answer is to start with a device that does nothing and add functionality back one piece at a time, instead of buying a device that does everything and trying to switch parts off. I walk through why, and what to do about the app every social kid asks for.   The part parents find hardest to believe: when a kid loses access to something like Snapchat, their real friendships tend to get better, not worse. The professionals I've talked to who work with thousands of families see the same thing over and over. I explain what's actually happening there, and why I'd hold that line even when it's the hardest parenting moment you'll face.   Chapters: 0:00 The whitelist approach 1:19 The gate rule 1:53 The Snapchat problem 2:49 What happens when it's taken away 3:50 Holding the line 5:36 Music and texting limits 5:57 Marketing exposure, not screen time 9:23 The bedroom rule   From the weekly Family IT Guy livestream. Watch the full stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLIhT9TId2Y   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.   Free preview, Lock Down Your Kid's iPhone: https://courses.familyitguy.com/iphone?flow=free-preview&utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=description   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

This is a conversation about how kids get targeted online and what parents can do about it, with a federal agent who works these cases. My guest is Special Agent Dennis Fetting of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), part of the Department of Homeland Security. He has been a special agent for 25 years, and he has spent about the last 13 of them overseeing or working child exploitation investigations from HSI's office in Nashville, which covers Tennessee and Kentucky. We start with who is going after kids. Dennis describes three groups: networks that collect and trade child sexual abuse material (CSAM), organized crime groups running financial sextortion, where someone gets a teenager to send an intimate picture and then demands money to keep it from being shared, and violent networks such as 764 that want kids to hurt themselves. He also names the two things that expose kids most, screen time and open access to the App Store or Google Play, and the free fix of locking the store so a child has to ask. He walks through the red flags in a stranger's profile and messages, what he did with his own son and daughter before they got phones, how the location data inside a photo can lead someone to your house, what can happen to ordinary photos of kids posted online, and what to do, step by step, if your child tells you something has gone wrong. Dennis asked that the places he named for reporting and getting help be posted with this episode: HSI tip line (hsi.gov): https://www.ice.gov/hsi NCMEC CyberTipline, the national reporting system for the online exploitation of children: https://report.cybertip.org/ NCMEC (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children): https://www.missingkids.org/home Take It Down, NCMEC's free service that can help remove or stop the online sharing of nude or sexually explicit images taken of someone under 18: https://takeitdown.ncmec.org/ Know2Protect (know2protect.gov), which he calls the federal government's response to this issue: https://www.dhs.gov/know2protect ICAC (Internet Crimes Against Children) task forces, the state and local detectives who work these cases. Your local police department can connect you with one: https://www.icactaskforce.org/ Chapters: 0:00 Highlights from the conversation 1:36 Who Dennis Fetting is and what HSI does 6:50 How big the problem is 15:54 Three main kinds of people targeting kids 22:46 What exposes kids, and a free fix 28:26 Who the offenders are 35:08 Red flags in a stranger's profile and messages 42:07 What an investigation looks like 50:56 Why offenders don't stay anonymous 52:55 How often offenders are caught 56:39 What he did with his own kids 1:06:02 Photo metadata and your location 1:09:58 Posting photos of your kids 1:17:31 Your child's privacy belongs to them 1:21:39 If something goes wrong: what to do, in order 1:30:43 The one thing he would change 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: Dennis M. Fetting, Special Agent in Charge, Homeland Security Investigations #parenting #onlinesafety #sextortion #onlinepredators #digitalparenting #familyitguy