Following Julie's post the other day on bullying and the red flags it prompts, this story on what parents can do seemed like something that should be passed along.

Taking the stance that bullying is not something to be ignored and that kids shouldn't be left to their own devises for dealing with it, a long and helpful list of tips on how to deal with the situation is included.

Although bullying does not necessarily equal violence, it can, and violence in schools is a real and horrifying issue. According to StoppingSchoolViolence.com, 282,000 students are attacked physically in American secondary schools, and 950,000 weapons are brought into schools by students.

And to think teachers used to get upset about kids bringing gum to school.

A report out of Washington DC from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on States' efforts to address the disproportionate representation black children in foster care has been released.

According to the report, most jurisdictions have "... taken steps to address the disproportionate representation, including involving families in decisions regarding children’s care, building community support to help children remain within their families and to widen the search for relatives to care for the children".

However, it was found that bias and cultural misunderstandings may contribute to the removal of children into foster care where they may stay for a long time due to the difficulty of recruiting foster and adoptive parents.

And while we're looking at kids and racial issues, in this article, the first of two from Toronto, a reporter talks to single mothers living in a public housing complex and asks: Where are the men?

Overwhelmingly, single mothers we interviewed were black. Statistics show black children are more likely to live in single-parent families in Canada. The 2001 census says almost half of black children 14 and under live with only one parent, compared with about one-fifth of other children. As well, the census shows that 44 per cent of black children live in low-income households, compared to 19 per cent of other children.

In talking about the men who begin the baby-making process, but don't stick around long afterward either by choice or because they are killed, one mother said, "Sometimes I think they are sucking the blood out of our veins ... What more can they take?"

Often raised without fathers themselves, many of the women raising children alone began life under a blanket of guilt wondering what they had done to push their fathers away.

Downey's mother had three children with three men. She met her father once. For five minutes. She was 10 and still wonders what went wrong.

"That's what I want to find out myself," says Downey. She'd like to say to him: "I guess I'm just wondering what was wrong with me that you never took the time to want to be with me."

The article poses this: Maybe the real question is why so many resourceful women keep having babies with men who move on.

One answer: "This is it – most of us did not grow up with fathers. Not fathers who were there all the time. Some were abused. So you try to find that love."