Dr Maxine Therese Children’s Wellbeing

Children’s Wellbeing

Dr Maxine Therese interview by Michelle R Price

There is an innovative new way for children to get in touch with their needs. Dr. Maxine Therese, a leading expert in the field of children’s wellbeing, has developed a tool which will be of great assistance to parents and teachers everywhere. Dr. Therese has been researching ways to better understand children from a holistic perspective for the past 17 years and released her Children’s Wellbeing cards in September, 2020. There are 28 cards in the deck, four for each of the seven foundational needs according to the Indian chakra system. It is hoped the cards will give children a voice when they are struggling to put their needs into words.

She said the message and image on each card was individually channelled, making the deck a true, ‘Labour of love’. The cards promote positive mental health in early childhood. Dr. Therese, founder and director of Childosophy, said she has seen children just get lost in the illustrations on each of the Children’s Wellbeing Cards, adding she remembers getting lost in swap cards when she was a child and recalls being taken places while looking at various images. “I really wanted children to have an image that resonated with a theme that they could then start to talk about their feelings,” she said. Her work to nurture the greatest potential in children has been her focus and passion for decades. Dr. Therese trains practitioners, teachers and parents in her child-centred wellbeing methods and explained that when adults jump in and try to get a child to tell them how they are feeling, “That can shut down really vital pathways”. She also said children can seize up when they can’t describe how they are feeling; especially when they don’t have words, colours or smells to describe how they are feeling. “The cards…evoke, I guess, a resonance in children and then there’s a reading for each card. So, the reading then talks about the theme and they are all channelled as well,’ Dr. Therese said. The idea is that a child will draw a card using their intuition. They may have a tummy ache or be having trouble sleeping and be able to get some guidance around what might be causing the issue she said. Dr. Therese explained the cards can also be used for, ‘Adult inner child work’. There is a guidebook and a journal available to use in conjunction with the cards as well. They are available for sale in various retail outlets and Dr. Therese hopes they will also be welcomed into schools in the future.