Trivia: At one point early in production, the film was going to be slightly retooled in order to make it the third entry in the "Cloverfield" franchise, following "Cloverfield" and "10 Cloverfield Lane." Eventually, this idea was dropped, and the movie was left as a stand-alone film.
Trivia: The first spoken line of dialogue does not occur until 38 minutes into the film.
Trivia: Test screenings for this were next to impossible - John Krasinski played the monster in a motion capture suit, but the CGI wasn't completed so audiences kept laughing at him whenever he came on screen instead of being scared by the monster.
Trivia: There are only 90 lines of dialogue in the entire film.
Answer: Possibly because it would be too dangerous. Most times an object like that could not be thrown far enough away to allow the family to escape, particularly in a panicked situation. A creature might be momentarily distracted, but would quickly zero in on them as very frightened children would probably be yelling, screaming, and crying.
raywest ★