When I was growing up, my siblings and I fought over the bathroom. This was our battleground when we were rushing to get ready for school , bed, or, if the stars smiled on us, dates.

Today the battle has shifted to the computer. If youre like me, you need to write, but your children need (or so they think) to chat with friends or really do need to do research online or type a paper. How do you achieve a lasting peace?

Think compromise and creativity. You give a little; they give a little. Here are five well-tested methods that have helped us achieve a truce, if not a complete respite from the battles over computer time.

Think back to yesterday when you were just getting into the writing zone of that article on South African wines. The front door bursts open followed by your ten-year old running past on his way to the bathroom. "Mommm," he hollers over his shoulder. "I need the computer to do my homework." Maybe you sighed, or even resented the disruption.

The first time this happened to me, I jumped up and handed my daughter complete control of my office. After thirty minutes I came in to check on her progress just in time to see her close six instant messaging windows. Now I do two things: I ask for proof or a description of the work they plan to do. Then I do a periodic walk through to see how her work is moving along.

What do you do when two, three, four (or more) children need access to the internet on the same night? First, check to see that they do indeed have homework, and second, place a priority on each ones work. If your teenage daughter has homework in five subjects but only needs the computer to type an English essay, put her last on the list. She can do her other homework while your slow-typing son with an earlier bedtime begins typing his poem, or researching the population of Nome, Alaska.

If the issue is checking email and chatting with school friends online, then have them sign up for time, just like at the library. This works well for us during holidays and vacations. They can tell their friends they will be online between 2 and 3 in the afternoon when I take a break (okay, a nap). Alternatively they can walk down the sidewalk to "chat" with a friend in person!

If you dont need your computer because you are organizing published clips to include with your query letters, but still want to limit the sedentary time spent playing games on the internet, use a good old-fashioned kitchen timer. Incidentally, timers work for parents, too. Set it for 45 minutes of writing. When it reminds you time is up, move about, stretching and warming up those cramped muscles.

Do you find that your childrens need to use the internet for homework and socializing is truly cutting into you own article research and market searches? This is more likely to happen with bigger families.

This is also a problem for parent writers whose work takes them out of the home during school hours. Suddenly, at 5 p.m., its crunch time for the computer. We are fortunate in that when I married my husband, we became a blended family. Not only did he gain three amazing step-children, we each brought a computer into the union.

That allowed us to designate one for the childrens use, and one for the adults. Once we signed up with the cable company for internet access, our original solution wasnt enough to keep the peace. We still had problems during "rush hour" with serious students, socializing teens and a mother with a deadline, all trying to email, chat and research. In this case, it might be worthwhile to create a network between computers, providing internet access to both (or all) computers.

Networking computers and cable connection to the internet can be expensive solutions that will pay off in better grades and more writing time. Another costly option to end the battle for computer time is to get a laptop or notebook computer. You can have all the comforts of your PC -- disk drive, CD-Rom and phone line hook-up, and they are enormously easier to pack up and take on the road. This solution will allow you to write wherever and whenever the opportunity arises no matter who else is using your PC.

Whether you decide to check homework assignments and check up on if its really being done, post sign-up sheets, use a timer, network your computers, or add a laptop, you can reduce your familys computer daze by seeking a creative solution.

Dont let computer share time stop you from writing; find a way to work as a family so that no one is left out.

About the Author

Pamela White is the author of Make Money as a Food Writer in Six Lessons, available at Amazon.com . She publishes ezines and teaches writing classes from her websites: http://www.food-writing.com and http://www.thewritingparent.net . To subscriber, please visit the sites. Her work has appeared in Writers Digest, Writers Weekly, ByLine Magazine, and Home Cooking.