n addition to parent coaching, I am passionately interested in research relevant to giftedness and parenting. To improve my coaching practice with parents of gifted children and, hopefully, contribute to the relevant knowledge base, I am currently conducting an in-depth qualitative study of mothers of gifted adult daughters. This study involves interviewing mothers of grown gifted daughters, focusing on the positive moments, greatest learnings, successful practices and effective sources of support these women discovered while raising their girls.  Hopefully, these interviews will serve as a vehicle to celebrate this accomplishment as well!

Part of this study also includes a sample of the adult daughters.  The young women who participate are those volunteered by their mothers and contacted directly to determine if they woud, in fact, like to be interviewed.  The purpose of interviewing some of the daughters is to record their thoughts about what they believe worked best to nuture their genius growing up.  No information obtained from either the mother or the daughter will be shared in any way and all conversations will be highly confidential.  Ideally, a secondary benefit of these talks will be to enhance the mother-daughter bond by promoting a discussion between mothers and daughters about their successful parent-child journey.

The wisdom of these women will then be shared with mothers currently raising gifted girls.  Specifically, the research findings (which will protect the confidentiality of all participants) will be disseminated in key publications for parents of gifted children.  I feel that by authentically sharing our stories as mothers of the gifted, future generations can benefit from our expertise and society's ability to "nurture genius" will be enhanced.  I also strongly believe that the voice of these "successful" mothers of gifted daughters needs to be heard and documented. 

For the mothers, participating in this study involves taking part in two hour-long phone interviews. For the smaller sample of daughters, just a one-hour call is required.  All interviews will be scheudled at the convenience of the study participants.  The participation of these women will be greatly valued and appreciated, both by me and future generations of mothers.  After the interviews, a draft transcript will be submitted to each study participant to insure that all identifying information has been deleted.  Finally, all study participants will receive a gift of organic bubble bath, a small token of my appreciation.