User:Coach Bruce Benko

Coach Bruce Benko, (born April 21, 1966) is a child advocate, speaker and author. In 1987 he decided to pursue a career teaching gymnastics, and moved to Houston, Texas. He found people whom he considered the best in the fields of education and gymnastics and made their work his “classroom.” Since 1992 Coach Bruce has been President of Texas Tumblers; a gross motor development/gymnastics program, located in Houston/Sugar Land, Texas. In January 2010 he started an organization called Giving Children a Voice, Inc. to increase awareness about why children are not complying.

Early life and education
Born in Conrad Montana, Coach Bruce spent his early years in Singapore, then moved to Hawaii and finally ended up in Truckee, California in 1972. Coach Bruce attended Tahoe Truckee High School where he graduated in 1984 and attended American River College for 2 years.

Role in Texas Tumblers
In 1992, Coach Bruce started a mobile gymnasium called Texas Tumblers which at its core is a non-competitive, age-appropriate, gross motor development program. Because his programs were designed to be located at the child’s school, he was able to observe and interact with parents, teachers, and administrators where he learned from many different education systems. Bruce’s “fly on the wall” approach allowed him to observe what did and did not work with children and gave him an insight that very few people ever get.

Book
Coach Bruce wrote The Gymnastics of Love & Discipline, A Parental Template for Giving Children a Voice, to help parents regain a loving relationship with their child through a simple but powerful, method of speaking and listening. Coach Bruce shares the wisdom he has gained over the course of twenty-five years, teaching more than 10,000 children, counseling thousands of parents, and working with over one-hundred educators, to help parents learn how to implement strategies and techniques that will give their child a voice.