A reader recently wrote in with the following question:

I have an 19 month old son who won’t stop throwing things. He throws them when he is happy, sad, angry, bored, etc. Any suggestions?

This is a great question, and one which we face on a nearly daily basis. We generally find that the best way of breaking our kids of bad/annoying habits is to ignore what they’re doing. If you can’t entirely ignore it (for safety reasons, for example) then deal with it as dispassionately as possible — don’t let them get a rise out of you!

Admittedly, this is pretty difficult for me — my wife is far better at it than I am, but… It definitely works. If you don’t let it visibly bother you, the offending behavior typically fades away before you know it.

This article is part of our Parenting Q&A series.

Update: Here’s info on the 2007 Child Tax Credit.

We’ve been getting a decent number of search hits for information on the 2006 Child Tax Credit. I’ve written about the Child Tax Credit in the past, but seeing as Tax Day is sneaking up on us, I thought I’d put together a fresh article with details based on current IRS guidance. [more]

In looking at our site stats, we’ve noticed that a number of people arrive here from search engines look for answers to fairly specific questions. In some cases, those answers can be found in one or more articles within our archives, but in other cases they can’t. Thus, we’ve decided to periodically pluck out some of these questions and spend a bit of time answering them.

Alternatively, if you have a question that you’d like for us to answer, please drop us a line. We love getting e-mail from readers, and we’re also always on the lookout for good article ideas. We can’t promise that we’ll tackle your question, but we’ll do our best to accommodate your interests.

As always, these articles will be categorized by subject matter, but they will also be cross-referenced in the Parenting Q&A category.