A Florida dad has gone viral after showing the surprisingly clever way his five year old managed to get around parental controls on YouTube Kids. Roberto Perez, a firefighter from Orlando, recorded his son Isaiah using Siri to solve the app’s built in math challenge, which appears when a child tries to open restricted content. The short clip reportedly pulled in more than 32 million likes, leaving many viewers equal parts amused and uneasy. What looks like a simple parenting story quickly turned into a reminder that “kid proof” tech rarely stays that way for long.
Perez explained that YouTube Kids lets parents limit what children can watch, but it also uses a quick verification step when someone tries to access locked areas. “In YouTube Kids you can set parental controls and allow only certain content. When you try to open content that is locked for parents, the app throws up a random multiplication problem as a check,” he said. In other words, the app assumes the adult will be the one answering. Isaiah treated it like a puzzle to beat rather than a barrier.
What made the moment even more eye opening for Perez was how far ahead his son already is in math compared with many kids his age. Isaiah is described as being comfortable adding two and three digit numbers and learning the basics of multiplication. Perez said he first noticed something was off when he realized Isaiah kept reaching content that should have been blocked. The missing piece clicked during a doctor’s visit for Isaiah’s brother, when Perez overheard his son asking Siri multiplication questions.
That was the “aha” moment, because Siri was doing exactly what it is designed to do. “My son figured out he could ask Siri, and she shows the answer on the screen. That’s how he solved the task without leaving the app,” Perez said. Instead of closing the app or asking an adult, Isaiah simply leaned on a voice assistant for instant help. The workaround was so smooth it barely looked like a workaround at all.
Perez admitted he was impressed even while realizing the obvious parenting complication. “I was impressed. Some people online commented that of course kids would try that, but it wouldn’t have occurred to me,” he said. He added, “That’s why I shared it. Kids are smart.” The clip was later posted to Instagram, and the screenshot shared with the story came from TikTok, which helped it spread even faster across different platforms.
The most interesting detail may be that Isaiah did not see himself as breaking rules. Perez said that when they talked about it, his son was not trying to sneak into forbidden videos in the way adults might assume. “He didn’t feel like he was ‘hacking’ anything. He just wanted harder math problems,” Perez said. He even framed it in an unexpectedly positive way, saying, “Basically, he was using YouTube Kids like a kind of math learning app.”
Still, the viral moment prompted a practical response at home. Perez said he updated the parental controls on Isaiah’s tablet, changed passwords, and adjusted settings to make bypassing them harder. The bigger point, he suggested, is that parents should expect kids to experiment and problem solve, especially when technology is involved. “As parents and educators we know kids will do anything to get what they want. We used to be kids too,” Perez said. He continued with a warning many families will recognize, “This is a reminder that kids learn fast and sometimes outsmart us quicker than we expect.”
Stories like this land because they highlight a modern reality, children are growing up surrounded by smart assistants, touch screens, and apps designed to keep them engaged. A tool like Siri can be helpful for homework, curiosity, or accessibility, but it can also become a shortcut that undermines other safeguards. YouTube Kids, like many child focused platforms, tries to balance simplicity for children with control for adults, yet any predictable gate can become a game to solve. When a verification step relies on a math problem, a child who loves numbers or a child with quick access to a voice assistant may have a clear path around it.
More broadly, parental controls are only one layer of digital safety, not a complete solution. They can filter content, set time limits, and reduce accidental exposure, but they do not replace supervision, conversations, and teaching kids how to make good choices online. Experts often recommend treating these settings as guardrails rather than locks, because kids change quickly, and so does technology. It also helps to periodically test the controls yourself, since updates, new device features, and voice assistants can introduce loopholes you did not anticipate.
YouTube Kids is a separate version of YouTube built for younger audiences, and it typically includes different content filters and parent settings than the standard app. Siri is Apple’s voice assistant, meant to answer questions and perform tasks through spoken commands, which is exactly why Isaiah’s approach worked so well. Put those two together and you get a real world example of how connected features can interact in unexpected ways. If nothing else, Perez’s clip is a nudge for families to review device level settings alongside app level controls, especially when voice assistants are enabled.
What do you think parents should do when kids find clever ways around digital limits, share your thoughts in the comments.
