Parenting Now:
Conversations for Raising Young People in a Changing World
A series presented by Maybeck High School and Donkey & Goat Winery
Join us for a series of conversations around parenting in the modern world.
These events are presented by Maybeck High School and Donkey & Goat Winery.
All events will take place at
Your teen can have AI write an essay in ten seconds. They can scroll through hundreds of highlight reels before breakfast. They’re growing up with tools that can make them faster, more connected, and more capable than ever. But those same tools can also make it harder to focus, think for themselves, and know what actually matters.
So how do we help teens take advantage of this new world without getting consumed by it?
Join Audrey Wisch, Co-Founder & CEO of Curious Cardinals and The FlightPlan, and Benjamin Zaidel, who leads operations and the customer experience for The FlightPlan, for a candid conversation about raising teenagers in a world shaped by social media, AI, and digital connection.
They'll share what they're seeing firsthand from students and families: where technology is helping, where it's getting in the way, and what parents can actually do.
We'll cover:
Social media, pressure, and self-worth: How to help teens navigate comparison, distraction, and the feeling that everyone else is doing more
AI without outsourcing their brain: How students are actually using AI, where it can make them stronger learners, and where it can start doing too much of the work for them
The skills that will matter even more now: How to build independence, judgment, curiosity, and confidence in a world where information and answers are increasingly easy to get
The evening will begin with a short workshop presentation led by Audrey and Benjamin before opening to Q&A.
Audrey Wisch is the Co-Founder and CEO of Curious Cardinals and The FlightPlan, where she helps families navigate education and college planning in a rapidly changing, AI-driven world. She paused her studies at Stanford during the pandemic to build Curious Cardinals and was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 at 19. Curious Cardinals has since supported more than 15,000 K-12 students, and Audrey has led more than 200 workshops for parents and educators, from school communities to Fortune 500 boardrooms, on topics including AI, student motivation, mentorship, and the future of education.
Benjamin Zaidel leads operations and the customer experience for The FlightPlan, where he works closely with students and families to turn big questions about high school and college into clear next steps. He earned both his bachelor's degree in Bioengineering and master's degree in Management Science from Stanford University, where he also spent four years teaching across math, engineering, finance, and accounting. Benjamin was one of Curious Cardinals' first mentors at Stanford in 2020 and worked in biotech consulting before joining The FlightPlan.
Join us as Charis Denison leads a frank and lively discussion on how we can be better guides to our teens as they navigate through this confusing period of adolescence. There has never been a more challenging time to raise boys. They are faced with dueling messages that often feel impossible. They are encouraged to seek vulnerability but seldom rewarded for it. They are taught to follow our culture’s definition of masculinity, often at the cost of themselves and our daughters. This can make the teen years lonely and painful. However, there are concrete ways we can raise our sons and daughters to gain the tools to make decisions that end in joy and honor rather than regret, guilt, or shame. Participants will leave feeling inspired about our future and with tools to sustain that inspiration. Parenting is hard enough. Let’s make it easier.
Charis Denison is a Youth Advocate, teacher, and expert in Human Development, Ethics, and Social Justice. Over the past twenty-five years, she has built her experience primarily partnering with hundreds of schools, teens, families, and organizations. She has received national recognition for her work in several of these fields. Charis has been on the faculty of the Urban School of San Francisco, Branson, and Marin Academy. Charis currently runs Prajna Consulting. Through Prajna, she partners with communities around the issues of Human Development, Social Justice, andEthics and the essential connection between those topics. Her work emphasizes fostering tools that allow young people to navigate outside the classroom as well as in. Charis’s work as a youth advocate emphasizes empowering young people to make choices that end in honor and joy rather than regret, guilt or shame. Her work is currently featured in Peggy Orenstein’s book, Girls and Sex: Navigating the New Landscape and Boys and Sex: Young Men on Hook Ups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity.
Join us for a conversation with Jodi-Ann Burey about how we can support young people, particularly young people of color, as they navigate middle school, high school, and beyond. How can we create spaces where young people experience a genuine sense of belonging while also helping them understand and navigate the complex social dynamics of schools, workplaces, and other institutions?
Jodi-Ann Burey (she/her) is a writer, critic, and sought-after speaker on race, culture, and health equity. She is the author of Authentic: The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work — a finalist for the 2026 Washington State Book Award. Her essays appear in various arts, business, and literary publications. Jodi-Ann is the creative director and host of Lit Lounge: The People’s Art, a prose and poetry salon and podcast. She was born in Jamaica, raised in New York City and now lives in Seattle.
Adolescence asks parents to navigate a delicate shift: gradually transferring responsibility and independence to their teens while remaining a steady source of connection, guidance, and support. Together, we’ll explore the art of letting go without disengaging, distinguishing between healthy struggle and situations that require intervention, and supporting teens in developing the confidence, judgment, and resilience they need to navigate an uncertain world.
Liz Welton, LCSW, will lead us in this discussion as a therapist and educator who has supported adolescents for two decades across high school, university, and outpatient settings. Liz is the Director of Counseling and Student Life at Maybeck High School, where she finds joy in helping students discover, through experience, the sense of purpose and agency that will propel them toward adulthood and independence.
Mud on the Moon is a hybrid memoir that intertwines a daughter’s exploration of her Filipino immigrant father’s obscured past with a reimagined version of his untold story. The book alternates between Nita’s coming-of-age story and imagined chapters of her father’s life, revealing the gaps and silences that lie between their experiences. With a blend of personal and historical imagery, Mud on the Moon offers a rare glimpse into the lives of Filipino immigrants in America. It is a meditation on how family, memory, and identity are shaped by the stories we inherit, both spoken and unspoken, across generations.
Nita Noveno is a writer and educator whose work explores memory, culture, identity, migration, and immigrant lives. She is the author of Mud on the Moon, winner of the 2024 Women’s Prose Prize from Red Hen Press, a hybrid memoir that weaves together family history, archival research, and imagination to explore her Filipino immigrant father’s life and her own upbringing in Southeast Alaska. Nita teaches composition and literature at Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY, and is the founder and host emeritus of Sunday Salon, a long-running New York City reading series. Her writing has appeared in MĀNOA, Identity Theory, Brink, and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s Open City and The Margins, among other publications. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School and lives in Queens, New York.
Join us for a conversation with author and teacher Daniel Herman about the impact of generative AI on the classroom, and more broadly, on how we learn, work, and think. Daniel has written and spoken extensively about AI and education, including in The Atlantic. Together, we’ll consider what has changed as generative AI has become part of everyday life, what educators and parents should be paying attention to now, and how we can help young people engage thoughtfully with both its possibilities and its risks, from questions about learning and human connection to privacy, equity, human rights, and environmental sustainability.
Daniel Herman is a Humanities teacher at Maybeck High School, a contributor to The Atlantic magazine, and author of Zen and the White Whale: A Buddhist Rendering of Moby-Dick. Daniel has written and spoken extensively on the topic of AI in the classroom, including in articles for the Atlantic. You can read Daniel's articles for The Atlantic on artificial intelligence in education here. See here for his recent lecture “Thinking and Learning in the AI Era.”
RSVP by selecting your event from the options below.