Voices of Parents of Highly Gifted Children in their Search for more Understanding in School (Flanders, Belgium)

We brought parents of highly gifted children together in focus groups to share their needs and concerns considering the schooling of their child. Flanders has a government funded program for cognitively high functioning students. Parents are happy to finally have acknowledgement for these students but signaled us in our private practices that even though schools are more alert for gifted students their extremely gifted children are still not recognized and therefore do not participate in this program. De Wit en Gevaert (guided by Ophélie Desmet, PhD) worked together on bringing families with highly gifted children together in focus groups. We talked to 50 parents of 45 children (ages between 4 and 17). Parents were asked what are the specific needs of their highly gifted child in school? And, what are the expectations of these parents toward school in general?