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 scares her most, and what you can do about it without being technical.

They get into a lot: why the free apps your kid uses aren't really free, why your kid is already using AI and who should be teaching them, the slang and rating systems kids use on each other that most parents have never heard of, and the red flags that an online "friend" is really a predator. They also dig into the parts of Big Tech's parental controls that don't actually work, what good monitoring really does, and one simple thing any parent can do today.

A couple of numbers from the conversation: suicide is the second leading cause of death for kids 10 to 14 in the US, behind accidents, according to the CDC. Titania also shares two of Bark's own numbers: about 80% of the time, parents had no idea their kid was struggling until an alert flagged it, and Bark now helps protect around 7.5 million kids.

Ben reviewed the Bark Phone earlier this year, and references that review here: https://www.familyitguy.com/bark-phone-review.html

The iPhone Parental Controls Masterclass walks you through locking down your kid's iPhone, every setting, step by step: https://courses.familyitguy.com/iphone

If you ever find out a child is being targeted or exploited online, you can report it to the NCMEC CyberTipline at https://report.cybertip.org/. If you or someone you love is struggling, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is there any time at https://988lifeline.org/.

Chapters:

0:00 Intro: Titania Jordan, Chief Parenting Officer of Bark

0:52 How she became a Chief Parenting Officer

5:34 Free isn't free: how platforms monetize your time

6:48 An MBA for kids: teaching them the business model

7:25 Dopamine, frame rate, and overstimulated kids

15:08 Nobody is teaching your kid AI, except you

17:40 Where AI belongs for kids, and where it doesn't

23:16 Why Bark exists: 80% of parents had no idea

28:52 Big Tech's parental controls are theater (Apple, TikTok)

33:21 Apple walked back catching child abuse images

34:45 There's no such thing as a friend in a corporation

36:41 Nobody at Bark reads your kid's texts: how it works

41:05 You're not authoritarian, you're being a parent

42:30 Privacy belongs to your child; you're the steward

47:46 Decoding what your kids are really saying (the slang)

55:15 The phone that won't let a kid take a nude

58:00 The predator playbook: grooming red flags

1:00:41 "Disappearing" messages don't disappear (Snap, screenshots)

1:04:06 No company is your friend, but some still do good

1:06:23 Judge a company by how it measures success

1:09:19 Roblox: who are you actually funding?

1:10:37 The one free thing every parent can do

1:12:28 Close: protecting millions of kids

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 and free guides: https://www.familyitguy.com

Guest: Titania Jordan, Chief Parenting Officer of Bark.

#parenting #onlinesafety #digitalparenting #kidsonline #cybersecurity #familyitguy