jQuery child of clicked element

I don't see the sample HTML but

$(this).find('a:first').attr('id')

would do it (fix a:first selector if it's not what you meant)

this refer to the element that fired your event

You could use the children method:

$(this).children('a').eq(0).attr('id');

I'm not sure about the syntax, but something like this should work.

To make your code a little neater, lets bind triggers with functions like so: (i suggest you give your UL an ID so it is specific to only elements within that UL)

$('ul li').bind('click', getAnchorId);

The function that is called (getAnchorId) gets the ID attribute of the children element (a) of the clicked element (ul li) and applies it to a variable (anchorId), and to show its getting the correct info I put the result in an alert.

function getAnchorId() {
    var anchorId = $(this).children('a').attr('id');
    alert(anchorId);
}

Now u can do what ever u wish with that variable :)

hope this helps :)