Where the Foundational Needs Model Began -
A Life Dedicated to Children's Wisdom
I didn't set out to build a framework. I set out to understand my own children.
What I was seeing as a mother didn't match what the books were telling me. Children's behaviours, the resistance, the symptoms, and the struggles, weren't problems to be managed. They were communications. They were children, in the only language available to them, telling the adults around them what they needed.
That gap between what I was observing and what existing frameworks could explain sent me back to university. Eleven years of research later, I completed my Doctor of Philosophy at Deakin University. My thesis A Philosophy of Childhood: The Foundational Needs and Children's Wellbeing drew on psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, and cross-cultural wisdom traditions to argue something that felt obvious once I saw it clearly: children arrive whole. Body, mind, and spirit, present and active from birth. Not incomplete. Not becoming. Already here.
That research became the Foundational Needs Model, the first framework to map the whole child across all three dimensions. And the Foundational Needs Model became Childosophy™.
Childosophy™, named for child's wisdom, is a practical ten-step methodology that gives parents, educators, and practitioners a structured way to read children's behaviours as need-based communications, support nervous system regulation, and work with the intergenerational patterns that shape family life. It is built on more than 28 years of lived and professional experience: as a mother, as a clinician, as an educator, and as a researcher.
The work has taken me into school settings, private clinical practice, parent education, and the training room, where I deliver a number of training programs based on my work for parents, educators and those who support and care for children. I also hold a Bachelor of Arts with Honours from Deakin University, where my Honours thesis examined childhood psychology through a Freudian and philosophical lens. That early work planted the question I've spent three decades answering: why do we keep misreading children?
The answer, in short, is that the frameworks we've inherited were built on a flawed premise. They start from deficit, the child as not-yet-adult, always becoming, never quite enough. Every intervention, curriculum, and diagnosis flows from that assumption. And it is wrong. Children are not problems to be solved. They are whole beings whose symptoms, behaviours, and struggles are pointing us, consistently and precisely, toward what they need.
When we learn to read that — everything changes.
Academic & Professional Credentials
Qualifications
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Bachelor of Arts, Psychology, 2006
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Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy, 2006
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Bachelor of Arts, Honours, 2007
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Doctor of Philosophy, Deakin University, 2013
Professional Development & Collaborations
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Karen Lane, 2003
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Peter Fenner, 2005
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Stuart Sovatsky, 2008
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Ken Wilber, 2009
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Bruce Lipton, 2011
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HeartMath Institute, 2014
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Mark Wolynn, 2018
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Tiziano Squerso, 2024 and 2025
Conference Presentations
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World Congress on Spirituality and Psychology, Habitat Centre, Delhi, India, January 2008.
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Yoga Philosophy and Integral Thinking. Australasian Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy, Melbourne University, 2008.
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Mind Body Spirit Festival, Melbourne, 2017 and 2018
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International Systemic Constellations Conference, 2018
Professional Certifications
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Marion Rosen (Rosen Method), 2008
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Darren Weissman, Lifeline Technique, 2009
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Dolores Cannon Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique, 2011
Published Works
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Haire, M. (2006), Phobia, Paradox and Persuasion in Freud’s Case of Little Hans, Honours Thesis, Deakin University.
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Haire, M. (2007). ‘Transforming Consciousness’. Sophia: an international journal for philosophical theology and cross-cultural philosophy of religion, 46 (3), pp. 303-309.
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Co-Editor ‘Ethical studies: overview (Eastern)’, In: Kurtz, L. eds. (2008).
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Encyclopedia of violence, peace, & conflict (Vol. 1). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier Inc, pp. 720-739.. Bilimoria, P., Wong Yih Jiun, P., Chapple, C. and Haire, M. (2008).
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Navigating Consciousness: An Exploration of Childhood Spirituality (2008).
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Yoga Philosophy and Integral Thinking. Australasian Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy, Melbourne University, 2008.
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Therese, M. (2010). The Integral Child . Man in India, 90 (1-2), pp. 319-338.
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Therese, M. (2013), Philosophy of childhood: the foundational childhood needs and wellbeing, Doctor of Philosophy thesis, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University.
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The Push for a Child Philosophy: What Children Really Need You to Know, Dr Maxine Thérèse, 2017
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The Wonder of You journal, Dr Maxine Thérèse, 2018
Explore Dr Maxine's Work
The Foundation of Childosophy
Childosophy begins where most frameworks stop. Rather than asking what is wrong with a child, it asks what the child is communicating, and what they need. Childosophy gives parents, educators, and practitioners a practical methodology for reading children's behaviour as need-based communication. It is not a theory to study. It is a way of working with children that changes practice from the inside out.
The Push
The Push for a Child Philosophy: What Children Really Need You to Know brings Dr Maxine Thérèse's doctoral research to parents, educators, and practitioners in its most accessible form. Built around the Foundational Needs Model, the book maps seven foundational needs across the child's body, mind, and spirit, drawing on neuroscience, developmental psychology, integral theory, and
ancient wisdom traditions. It offers
not just a framework but a new
way of seeing children
Media and Press
Dr Maxine is available for podcast interviews, keynote presentations, and panel events. She speaks on children's wellbeing, behaviour as communication, intergenerational trauma, and what it means to see a child as already whole.
Browse her recent podcast appearances and media contributions by selecting the link below, or get in touch via the contact page to discuss an interview or speaking engagement.