There are always those one…or two…or all of your kids that just don’t seem to ‘fit in’ with conventional wisdom when it comes to childhood development. And it’s easy for you, the parent, to worry about seemingly any signal your child my give off that they’re not developing spiritually, physically, and/or emotionally.

Kathi Lipp is the author of , and provides encouragement for parents — especially moms — for the tough times of parenting.

Lipp says she’s found most parents ask themselves sooner in parenthood rather than later, ‘I wish someone would just tell me what to do!’. To compound that notion, most moms are hit by the feeling that, because they don’t know what they’re doing, they’re a bad mom.

Lipp says the first step in getting unstuck from that parenting “rut” is to realize,

“Our kids have issues, but that doesn’t mean we’re bad moms. That also doesn’t mean we can’t ask for help.”

Kathi says another factor to take into to consideration is the fact that many parents don’t want to say ‘no’ to their kids:

Highlight: setting boundaries, saying sorry

The biggest thing Kathi says parents need to understand is that sometimes, the next step in parenting isn’t always to ‘do’, but to ‘be still’ and wait for the Holy Spirit to direct your path as a parent. In other words, don’t set unrealistic expectations on your kids:

“How can you have a plan for your kid’s life when you don’t know what God’s plan is for your child’s life? We have to stay responsive to the Holy Spirit. When we see things happening in our kid’s life, we need to be praying, we need to be asking questions, and we need to be supporting.”

“I think that it’s more important to say, ‘my expectations need to be on myself and my relationship with God’ so that I can be praying for my child, supporting my child, and knowing the deepest parts of their heart.”

When kids don’t go according to plan