If your kid has been diagnosed with something minor and easily managed, you don’t need to be reading this. And if you’re dealing with a real medical emergency you don’t have time right now. For everyone in between, the first thing you may need to do is nothing more than sit back and take a breath.

Learning that your baby or young child has challenges is upsetting to any parent. Just stopping to take a breath and a moment for yourself is a fine idea. It is not the end of the world, but it can be a scary moment, for many reasons.

There is no such thing as a perfectly normal child.  But it is also true that learning your child may have challenges more serious than most is never easy.

When you realize that your kid may not have the life you imagined, it can feel like a real loss. It’s never a great idea to spend a lot of time focusing on the negative. But every parent needs to let go of their idea of a perfectly happy kid in their own way. Give yourself time to get used to it. And look forward to being amused by other parents who haven’t been able to give up their ideas about the perfect kid – the ones yelling too loud on the sidelines of the sports field, or getting angry their child was given a grade they don’t like. At times it’s very hard to get clear answers to questions like ‘Is she going to grow out of this?’ or ‘Why can’t he tell us what’s bothering him?’. Trying to get clear, simple answers about your child can be very frustrating for any parent. What we all want to know is if our children will grow up to be happy and successful, and that’s a bigger worry when there are challenges. But there are more useful questions: What can we do to help our child thrive? How soon can we start therapies that can make a difference? What can we do to make sure she gets enough sleep and exercise? What every day activities will be helpful? How can we help her to be more active and engaged?

You will have your own questions, and often other parents are really helpful. Just try to focus on supporting your child and you’ll find that many questions do have answers, and helpful ones too. Look for questions, not answers Don’t listen to what ‘they’ say.  Many people have suggestions about how other people should care for their children. They usually mean to be helpful and sometimes are. But when a baby or young child has challenges things get a little more complicated. People may tell you how sorry they are about your difficulties, or say how much they admire you for being so brave. This is probably not what you need or want to hear. People also offer you advice about miracle cures, ideas about what causes problems and strange sounding treatments your doctor won’t tell you about. There is probably a good reason your doctor won’t tell you about that treatment, and if it sounds strange to you it’s because it probably is.

When something is not right with a child parents don’t just feel concerned: we want it fixed right away.

With something like an ear infection or a rash, a nurse or doctor can help, and the usual approach is sometimes called ‘name, blame and tame’. That means figuring out what the problem is, finding out what is causing it, and taking care of it. But things are not always as simple as 1,2,3. If your child is not developing, for example, it may be called Pervasive Development Delay (PDD) or Autism Spectrum. These are not really helpful names, the cause usually isn’t obvious, and a cure is usually not clear.

Patience is important for you and your family. And remember, worrying about your kid’s future is part of being a parent. You just have different and sometimes more scary things to worry about.