Disappointed in the multiplayer changes

My kids were very happy playing Minecraft Java with each other in our house on their Wi-fi connected computers. They also enjoyed having one friend join them online. We discovered that 1.19.4 doesn't allow young kids to safely play in a 2- or 3-person game. I will not allow them into the greater Minecraft community. I finally figured out how to go back to 1.19.3 but that only allows them to play if we run a very long cable through our house, and won't allow them to play with another friend. Oddly, one of my kids has version "1.19.71" on his computer, but this seems like an anomaly and I can't find such a version to install for my other child. Your multiplayer help only describes LAN help for Java, or online help for Bedrock. I can only imagine how many more help articles I have to read to find Bedrock launcher and Bedrock versions. And then I can only hope that they can play online privately with one friend, not with people of all ages. I guess it's time to go back to Education Edition.