You are at the grocery store with your daughter and she pulls out her hard-earned fifty cents and begins to buy a candy. Your son is at home with his soon to be step-Dad and fifty cents is jingling in your pocket... so you buy the same candy in a "boy" flavor to prevent any arguments when you get home.

At the Carrington house, we work on the "you earn it... you get it" system. That goes for t.v., play and video game time. We supply the kids with a base $5.00 pay and then they earn extra money for doing other things around the house and helping cook. If they are very good they and make good good grades, they receive a $2.00 bonus.

Cassie and Arthur have their own rooms and their own stuff in their own toy boxes.

So, you hear them arguing upstairs and check out what is going on... One of them is playing a video game and has been for hours, the other is playing in their room and complaining that they never get to watch t.v. Well, you bought the video game system and games so they could play them together, and you put a t.v. in the common family room so they could both watch it.

You solve the problem with a t.v. time, video time chart and they both shake their heads and go outside to ride their bikes together.