It starts with a certain numbness, breaking out into a cold sweat and ending in a sharp feeling of wanting to vomit. It is the first realisation that one's child may not be keeping up with the rest. It is the realisation that the traditional system may not be for your child and that it may never be. This acknowledgment is clear, but what is even more frightening is that you do not see one single thing that you can do about it.

No single school comes to mind; no gentle atmosphere presents itself which may be formative, reassuring and accepting. The fear is mind-numbing and all pervasive. You start doing some research and, because you do not come up with any answers, you blame yourself for not being thorough and persistent enough in your research, which normally is done in fits and starts, always punctuated with the reverent hope that your child will fit in and be like the others - "normal".

You may begin to fervently watch other children. How quickly do they understand games? How well do they read? How broad is their vocabulary? What page are they on in their maths book? Then you start reading articles on how the "good" parent stimulates a child. You try to point out all the sights on the walk. You buy the computer games that are sickly advertised as turning your children into "little professors". You cut down radically on TV time and poor old Mario and Banjo Kazooie get thrown out the window. You start having "discussions" at the dinner table.

And all the time your little darling looks on at your efforts with sad eyes and asks: "Why don't you love me any more?"

This question rips at your heart. You say to yourself that it is not the child's fault. You left it too late - you should have hung those empty yoghurt cartons over his/her crib from birth for stimulation and taken your toddler along to galleries from the age of two. What about that preschool which tried to teach them to read when barely talking? If you had sent your child there, he or she would have had "the edge", been "ahead of the posse", had "the tools".

Your child, in your mind, is consigned to a position of being different - worse still, stigmatised and labelled. This is most heartbreaking: a parent will do almost anything to protect children from the searing pain of feeling different.

If there is even one poor reader who identifies with the above, I would love you to:

STOP

Right now

And take a very deep breath . . .

And three more

And keep reading

Gently and slowly.

Your child is placed under your guardianship for a short time. You are not asked to create him; he is already created. You are not asked to define her; she is already defined. You did not plan when she would come; she came when you and she were ready. You did not plan his sex; his was done for you. You did not form her body; this was formed, step by step, day by day, in your womb, for you. He came with his own little mind and personality, independent of you.

If all this has been done for you at the birth of your child, do you really think that you and your child will be abandoned now, just because she is older?

But what are the steps, you ask. What is the plan? What structure will my child fit into? I want you to understand, plan it, so that "my child and me" don't go wrong again.

Did you ever understand the formation of your child's body? Yet you nurtured and facilitated this growth. Did you ever understand the functioning of your child's brain or personality? Yet you witnessed and encouraged its blossoming. If you spent the rest of your life trying to figure out even a fraction of that miracle, the intricacies would be mind-boggling.

You will never be able to begin to determine all of the infinite, varying factors that will influence your child's life. Your only function is to be there, witness and facilitate the unfolding of this life and trust that it is following an equally intricate and miraculous path. Even the events which your child experiences which you interpret as being the most negative may be the very ones which will be the most formative. In this, you trust the process. As you formed and protected the embryo in your womb, so will you also protect your growing child. You do not grow your child, your child grows. You do not develop your child, your child develops.

You love your child.

The problem may lie with the fact that we think we know the nature of intelligence and how it fits into the world. As our society constantly keeps changing so too does its needs. Different skills, talents and intelligences are needed for each age.

What if your child is exactly the way he or she is meant to be and has no need of change? What if the particular gift or intelligence that your child has, which may not seem to be relevant in the society of today, may be just the gift that is needed in the world in 10 or 15 years' time? Parents say that, when they go to explain what they know is there in their children, it seems as if: "I just can't find the words. It just seems as if what I am saying is not relevant and that I am only saying this because I am biased and because I am this child's Mother or Father."

But perhaps this is the very time that parents must trust themselves, what they see and what they know. They must keep this knowledge very clear for times when their child loses hope. This clear knowledge of our children and our trust in them can be a beacon which they can follow throughout their lives.

Andree Harpur is a guidance counsellor