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

Category: Parenting

No-Stalgia

Late and lost in small town New Hampshire on a recent trip and perhaps contrary to the stereotype for my gender, I asked for directions. The whole town was the size of a postage stamp, how hard could it be to find a boarding school with dozens of buildings? But

Read More »

Help Wanted

Not that it matters to most students, or most universities for that matter, but several hundred test-takers score a 1600 on the SAT each year. Some of these kiddos with “perfect” scores are admitted to highly competitive colleges (HSCs), some not. As one HSC admissions counselor pointed out, “we could

Read More »

G-I-R-A-F-F-E

All things being equal, I suppose I would rather have a child who is able to look up words in the dictionary on his own than a child who wakes me up in the middle of the night asking me how to spell giraffe. On the other hand, I would

Read More »

Don’t Panic!

My neighbor to the north is concerned that her adolescent son is always out riding his bike, that he does not devote any time to reading. My neighbor to the south is concerned that her adolescent son always has his face buried in a book, that he seldom gets any

Read More »

Recommendation

Colleges are businesses. Colleges are businesses with some nice folks trying to good things, but colleges are businesses nonetheless. Colleges aren’t creepy dishonest businesses like Enron, but somebody at the college is aware that income should exceed expenses. Just as a chicken is in egg’s way of making another egg,

Read More »

Equivalent Statements

  The author assumes full responsibility for this newsletter containing explicit language which may be inappropriate for some readers, offensive to others.  . Where do all the “f+ck you mom, it’s all your fault, you f+cking bitch, I hope you die” kids come from? There certainly are a lot of

Read More »

Safe at Home

After 300 college visits over the past several decades, perhaps I can be forgiven for skipping out on the information session and taking a personal tour. I have heard “take the most academically rigorous courses your high school has to offer” enough times to believe that it’s true. I have

Read More »

Eggsactly

On a cool South Florida night in 1968, my buddies Alan and Elliot appropriated a dozen eggs from Alan’s refrigerator and positioned themselves in a thick hedge near an overpass on Miami Beach. Before the first gooey projectile had been lobbed, flashing lights appeared. The 12-year-olds were taken into custody

Read More »

Advice

At a recent conference in New Orleans I had the mixed pleasure of reconnecting with an old college friend who had apparently never heard of “never mix, never worry.” I learned from colleagues that Stacie had started with Kahlua and coffee at lunch and had slurped an entire bottle of

Read More »

Child for Sale

A twenty-five dollar gift certificate, a $2.95 card that reads, “Welcome to the family,” and a 47-cent stamp can undo a year of misunderstanding. Total expenditure: $29.42. Not a bad price to pay for an adult child if you think about it. I know folks who routinely pay $29.42 for

Read More »

Copyright © David Altshuler 1980 – 2024    |    Miami, FL • Charlotte, NC     |    (305) 978-8917    |    [email protected]