David Altshuler, M.S.
(305) 978-8917 | [email protected]

Category: Parenting

Congratulations?

In the mid 1950s, my grandparents bought a 700-square foot two-bedroom, one-bath, summer home in western North Carolina. They paid $5000. Their first visitor considered the shoddy construction, the 25-foot wide lot, the peeling paint, the obscure location hundreds of miles from Brooklyn and the rest of the known universe.

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Paying your Housekeeper to Keep your Kids off Drugs

“Just say no way there is anything more important than my communicating my unequivocal, unconditional positive regard and connection to my child“ is, admittedly, less concise, but the 40-year old slogan may benefit from updating. Just shy of 70,000 drug related deaths last year is a familiar figure to my

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Running Behind

One of our running buddies has a developmentally delayed daughter. Amanda is 17 years old and while she can shower, brush her teeth, and dress herself, there is little likelihood that she will ever read beyond a second grade level. Her cognitive impairments are evident after even a brief conversation

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Dark Matter

As anyone with a Ph.D. in physics can inform you, “dark matter is composed of particles that do not absorb, reflect, or emit light.” I mean, duh. What else would dark matter be? Admittedly, “dark matter is material that cannot be seen directly.” But there’s lots of stuff in that category. Neither

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Class Action

That we are a social species is not news. Indeed, the bunch of us who were plodding along together at Mile 11 the other day were beyond pleased to see a cadre of running buddies who had come out to cheer for us and 20,000 of our closest friends. It’s

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Gratitude and Latitude

Time spent sheltering-in-place due to the Corona virus pandemic  has allowed me the opportunity to re-read a few hundred of these newsletters. While I stand by what I have written—“play Parcheesi with your kids; go camping with your kids; play Parcheesi with your kids while camping”—I noticed a certain strident

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What is this about?

“You are a concierge medical practice. We pay you a lot of money. You are supposed to look after your patients. Why haven’t you gone to my mother’s house to check up on her? Why haven’t you been there to test her for the virus? You know she’s 87 years

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Uncommon Divisors

Division is my thing. I love how a dollar can be perfectly divided into four equal parts each one of which has its own name, a quarter. I love seven as a denominator. The repeating six digits have an eloquent pattern. One seventh equals .142857… Two sevenths is .285714… It’s

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Last Call

In round numbers it has been 40 years since my first half marathon, 40 days since my last. At some point, the definition of “last“ shifts. “Last“ always means “most recent“ until it doesn’t. Then “last“ means “final,” there was never another one. Absent actually dying on the course—an unpleasant

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You say POT-tato

This just in: there is pot at every school in this country. Even ten years ago, there were day schools and boarding schools that were free of kids who use marijuana. Not anymore. Every school in this country has students who consider “weed” part of a good breakfast. Every school.

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Copyright © David Altshuler 1980 – 2022    |    Miami, FL • Charlotte, NC     |    (305) 978-8917    |    [email protected]