THERE were some great questions to choose from for Reader Request Wednesday, but I felt like dealing with ones about child custody this week since I've been dealing with some custody issues myself lately.

First up, is Eric, who asks "My baby momma hasn't paid child support one time since I got custody of our son. I am getting by, but it would help a lot if she pitched in. Is there anything I can do to make her pay?"

A. Getting your back child support will take some work, but with some effort you should be able to collect what you are owed. Here are seven things you can do:

1. Make sure you have a child support order- Just because you think you are owed child support doesn't automatically mean you will get it. You must have a court order stating the child support terms.

2. Talk to your ex- In the event you do have a court order, the first thing you should do is talk to your ex. If they are hostile or you are unable to find them, that is one thing, but there may be circumstances in their lives explaining why payments have ceased. Talk to them, find out and make plans to have payments continued.

3. Keep records- If your ex still doesn't want to pay, you are going to need to have some records of what you think you are owed. You can download this free time tracker tool, use a child support calculator or buy some other support tracking software to keep detailed records to prove your case.

4. Contact your state child enforcement agency- Take your records to your local child support enforcement agency and fill out the required paperwork. Most often they will garnish the delinquent parents wages or place a lien on some of their property. You can also find your state's child support laws here.

5. Hire a child support recovery company- If for some reason your state agency cannot help you recover back child support, there is a good chance a third party service can help. They typically take 1/3 of the recovered amount, but they have higher recovery rates than some states. Some of these companies include Child Support Recovery, Support Kids and Support Collectors.

6. Get an attorney- It's good to try other options, but if nothing else has worked, get an attorney and see what they can do. The threat of lawsuit may be enough to convince your ex to pay up. If not, perhaps following through will yield some results.

7. Read the Child Support Enforcement Handbook- This free 93-page book should be able to give you some other idea as to what you can do to recover any child support payments you may be owed.

Hope that helps Eric. Please come back and let us know how things turn out.

DAD TALK

* What type of child support agreement do you and your ex have?
* Has it worked out for you?
* Are you interested in improving your child support situation or does it seem like more hassle than it is worth?

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I got an email yesterday from a reader that felt yesterday's post was akin to bribery.

Rob wrote - "It seems in order to get our children to do what we want them to, we have to bribe them. I don't see how this approach is any different than paying our kids to act the way they should act anyway. I wasn't given rewards for behaving the way I was expected to and I turned out pretty good. Don't you think you are making it harder on your children's future with this type of "discipline"?"

I can see Rob's point, but I'd like to clarify two of my own.

First off, two of my three children are from different dads and I came into the picture after they were raised a different way. I was also missing from my daughter's life for a few years and so much like a step-parent, I have to walk the thin line of disciplining them without trampling on everything they've ever known.

Second, despite this "handicap", my girls have shown a desire to improve their behavior, much of which I feel is due to treating them with more love and respect than they were previously getting. Through a combination of positive reinforcement, praise and rewards, I have watched them grow substantially.

I was raised by the hand (read: belt) and by GP (general principle) and often felt my parents to be hypocrites. Despite turning out pretty good myself, I often rebelled in extreme ways as a child and felt out of place and unaccepted much of the time.

As parents, there are no hard rights or wrongs and we learn as we go. I'm no exception to this rule, and only share what I have seen work (or not work) in hopes of helping each of us become better fathers.

One of the most important things we can do as parents is to observe how our punishments affect our children and change them accordingly. A good start is to understand different discipline tactics, especially positive and negative, which I've outlined below.

Positive Reinforcement: Your child is asked to clean her room. She cleans it with no fuss as asked, and receives a treat.

Negative Reinforcement: Your child is asked to clean her room. She cleans it with no fuss as asked, and now doesn't have to do some other chores.

Positive Punishment: Your child is asked to clean her room. She doesn't clean her room as asked, and now has to clean her room and another chore in addition.

Negative Punisher: Your child is asked to clean her room. She doesn't clean her room as asked, so you take away television privileges for the rest of the week.

I tend to discipline with positive reinforcement, but you need to analyze whether or not the actual target behavior in fact increases or decreases over time to figure out which is best for your child.

To find out more about positive reinforcement, check out these frequently asked questions.

Discussion Points:

* Do you agree or disagree with positive reinforcement?
* Do you think positive reinforcement is too easy on children or perhaps reinforces bad behavior?
* Do you think we learn discipline from our parents?
* Do you discipline your children the same way you were disciplined?
* Do you have any suggestions you’d like to add?