How Bully Proof Came to Be
Frank Zinck Halifax Dartmouth NS – originally I created Bully Proof in 1995 when I was asked to counsel a 13 year old girl who had been picked on her entire life. Being a martial artist I really had no idea what the answer was but she enrolled in my Ju-jitsu program and I studied possible solutions. I soon discovered there were no easy solutions and very little actual advice existed.
Her parents had moved her from seven schools in three years and each time kids would pick on her. It was obvious the problem wasn’t with the other kids but something this beautiful gentle girl was doing was drawing kids to tease and pick on her.
It became obvious to me that the trouble lay in her “non-verbal communication”, her body language was telling other kids, “I’m an easy target….. come pick on me!” Now I had to figure out what it was and figure out how it could be changed. This was a very complex problem with no easy answers.
During a Karate trip to the United Kingdom I picked up a local Paper that reported a 9 year old had committed suicide to escape the wrath of her tormentors, other elementary school children. It broke my heart to think that as a society as advanced as ours such a thing could happen. It was there and then that I committed myself to develop a program that could provide real life solutions, not just validate that there is a problem.
Understand too, that a three hour workshop like Bully Proof will not solve children’s problems but rather give them and their parents the basic life skills they need to succeed and must be practiced like a fire drill and become apart of their every day life. Then the bullying will stop like it did for the 13 year old girl I counseled years ago.
I hope this website helps you, feel free to contact me below.
Frank Zinck