Victoria Rathjen-Duffton is an integrative Chinese medicine practitioner, Orofacial Myologist and Play Therapist, synergistically combining all three modalities for a truly holistic approach to child wellness. At Whole Child Health, she works with children of all ages and their parents, offering a holistic and preventative approach to helping children in all aspects of their health, both physically and mentally. She has a particular interest in how we breathe (especially important for children), oral health and jaw development, which can have a fundamental impact on emotional and brain development. She is also passionate about improving gut/microbiome health, allergies and skin conditions, anxiety, ADHD and ASD symptom management and sleep disorders. Here she talks to The Natural Parent Magazine about the inspiration behind her business, her biggest breakthrough, and her hopes and dreams for the future.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
My business started in 2018 as a means to stay home with my toddler. As a Chinese medicine practitioner, I wanted to be able to share my knowledge of natural health with other parents so that they could confidently use natural medicine in their own homes and with their children. From there it has grown, morphed, and changed along with my family. Over those years, I birthed another baby, and have adapted to juggling my business around homeschooling my two children.
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
Initially, my business started with a small range of handcrafted herbal products for children along with a blog on how to use natural medicine techniques at home and make herbal products from scratch using ingredients from your own garden. I wanted to inspire people to use home grown herbalism – natural medicine from their own backyards to keep their families healthy and thriving.
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
The biggest breakthrough I had was when my children were a little older (7.5 and 3.5) and I felt like I had the headspace for a bit more study. Through my own research and experiences in parenting, I had dived deeply into dental health and also therapeutic play. After using this knowledge with my own children and seeing wonderful results I was keen to learn more and share this with other parents, so I dived into some more formal study, completing postgraduate studies in Child Centred Play Therapy and Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy. From here, I then had more specialised tools to support families physically with natural medicine, emotionally with play therapy and with oral health, jaw development/functional-breathing support with Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy. This led to an expansion from a product-based to a service-based business, consulting with families and children to support them holistically in their healing and wellness.
Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
Finding the right work-life balance has been a challenge throughout my business journey as I’m a bit of an ‘all or nothing’ kind of person. But what works best for my family and our lifestyle as we juggle work and homeschooling commitments is having a set rhythm of when I’m working, whether that’s from my clinic on a couple of set days per week or catching up on admin during intentional work slots at home or while my children are asleep.
