Raising Emotionally Intelligent Children

Rene has been a daughter, sister, friend, wife, teacher, single parent and grandparent, counsellor, traveller and so much more.

Children have always been Rene’s passion, so school teaching primary age children gave her the chance to develop her own interest in how children develop, especially once she began her own emotional wellness work. She realised she could adapt this learning and make it easy for children to learn about their emotions and how to deal with them. From her work with her students, her clients and her granddaughters her original book was born, and from there this revised book and a corresponding Children’s Workbook have been published.

Rene is:

• a qualified primary schoolteacher with many years of experience,
• teacher-librarian and a Cataloguing librarian,
• Hotel/Motel co-publican
• relaxation massuer,
• Reiki Master,
• Breathwork Therapist,
• Counsellor,
• Journey Practitioner
• and teacher of Tai Chi.

 She spent a fantastic year teaching English as a Foreign Expert at a rural Chinese University in 1998/99, coming home prepared to travel and work elsewhere in the world. However, her two granddaughters were in Out of Home Care so, at 56, Rene took two little girls aged 10 months old and 2, into her home, and reared them for 20 years.

As an Emotional Wellness Counsellor Rene firstly worked in the Carers Network  co-facilitating Emotional Wellness sessions for Carers, their workers, support staff and providers. This lead to one-to-one sessions with clients all over Western Victoria.

Rene has always loved to travel and to find out just what is around the next corner and at 50 she began her first overseas venture – to China, as a Tai Chi student. Another trip followed before she retired and went to China to work.

For a few years Rene became a speaker for Probus and Rotary groups telling them of how she has spent the last twenty years.

In 2016 Rene visited Nepal, (she had been there as a tourist in 1994 and swore she would never eat Chicken Curry again after the experiences at Namche Bazaar). This time however there was a greater purpose as she had become involved in making and supplying Sanitary Kits for girls in need. The goal this year was to not only to supply the kits, but also to teach the girls in outlying and mountainous villages how to sew their own, and it was a very successful trip. The next trip introduced her to 6 more villages and so her love of Nepal grew deeper. She organised for a group of 10 to travel to Kathmandu and the Gorkha valley at the end of March 2020, so she could introduce the women she worked with to others, and had made and collected more than 300 kilos of supplies when Covid struck.

 Only time will tell when she can return.

Rene’s love of Emotional Wellness continues and she continues to further her learning through experience and courses that answer this need.

Rene’s adage is “You are never too old to learn and you are never too young to learn about understanding your emotions”.