If you are, then you're doing everything you can to meet your child's needs, listening to their feelings, and avoiding punishments, rewards, harshness, guilt and disconnection.

You know that they need to cry with your loving support to express their painful feelings.

You understand that they only do challenging things if they have unmet needs or pent-up feelings.

You're putting so much care and love and diligence into being the mother you want to be.

And yet, what about yourself?

Are you treating yourself with the same care that you are giving to your baby or child?

Do you ignore your own needs or do you see them as gifts?

Are you compassionate with yourself, or do you judge and compare yourself and punish yourself with guilt?

Are you harsh with yourself around your own control patterns, or do you explore them with tender self-care and see them as signposts for your feelings?

Have you ever wondered whether the way you parent is actually what you want for yourself?

Would you like to treat yourself more like you treat your children?

I've been practising Aware Parenting since my daughter was three months old, in 2002. I started Aware Parenting with my son, born 4 years later, from birth.

I've had periods of practicing Aware Parenting in ways that I deeply enjoy, when I am living in alignment fully with the principles and practices.

And I've been through challenging times, where I've acted in ways that are very far from my values and my vision of Aware Parenting.

I've shifted core beliefs. I've learnt a new relationship with my feelings.

I've found my community.

I've learnt that Aware Parenting is so much more than listening to my children's feelings and needs - it invites profound personal transformation.

I've also been an Aware Parenting Instructor since 2005, and in that time I've talked to many mothers.

I've learnt about their challenges, their celebrations, and what they need to make the changes they want to make.

I've run Aware Parenting groups and workshops in various cities.

I've been involved in developmental psychology for more than 30 years.

I have a Ph.D. on the mother-infant relationship from Cambridge University.

I spent most of my twenties in individual therapy as part of my Psychosynthesis Psychotherapy training. I qualified in 1996 and worked for several years as a Psychosynthesis Psychotherapist in private practice.

I also worked as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, looking at babies' cognitive abilities, and I taught The Therapeutic Relationship to MA students at Exeter University.

I was one of the first people to become an Aware Parenting Instructor in Australia, and at present am the only Level 2 Aware Parenting Instructor in Australia.

I am incredibly passionate about the wider picture of Aware Parenting.

It is my vision that one day Aware Parenting and similar paradigms become the mainstream parenting model.

I am passionate about having deep deep compassion for all parents and all children.

I know that we all want to be the most loving parents we can be, and at times we all get overwhelmed, frustrated, and powerless.

There is no judgement, guilt-induction or shaming in any of my work; I'm all about us as parents finding deep self-empathy so that we can truly listen to our children.

For me, Aware Parenting helps us give an incredible gift to our children, just as it invites us to evolve as human beings.