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

Category: Parenting

Stray Dog

So much of parenting has to do with compliance that it can be hard to keep our eyes on the prize: the relationship between you and your child. “Brush your teeth; clean your room; do your homework” is just the beginning. There are more essential imperatives. “Learn to swim; don’t

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Stealing Home

I don’t mean to creep you out but someone is stalking you. This particular someone is watching your every move, listening to every word you say, studying your facial expressions, thinking about how you respond to every situation. There is no place you can hide, nothing you can do to

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Running Together

At dinner before a recent event, I asked one of my buddies about his goals for the next morning. “What is your plan? What will be your time per mile for the first five miles? How many minutes will you have in the bank for the inevitable slow down at

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“No” surprise

Forty-something years ago I was attracted to a college classmate. After our literature seminar, we chatted about the novels we wanted to write as adults. “We liked the same music, we liked the same bands, we liked the same clothes.” It seemed like we had a lot in common. But

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Magic

Isn’t insanity also defined as the differential between what you think you are able to do and what you actually are able to accomplish? People make fun of adolescences in this regard. Magical thinking is the phrase used for teenagers who think they are smarter, stronger, faster that the stopwatch

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Hope

There’s always hope. Nah. Not really. Not always. At a recent meeting of pre-meds at a university whose name you would recognize, the panel of actual medical students and genuine doctors gave advice to the aspiring (“slathering” has such unfortunate connotations) physicians. Phrases were bandied about like Frisbees at a

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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

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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

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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

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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

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