Troubled Families

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the host of TLC's reality TV series Shalom in the Home, gives on-the-spot parenting advice to families in crisis. A father of eight and author of 10 Conversations You Need to Have with Your Children, Rabbi Shmuley says he aims to bring shalom—or peace—to troubled families who are collapsing in dysfunction.

Rabbi Shmuley says the greatest threat facing America today is internal. "The catastrophic decline of the American family, the utter disintegration, the decentralization of the American home is our foremost national emergency," Rabbi Shmuley says.

The root of the problem, says Rabbi Shmuley, is that families today are disconnected—and he says "checked out" parents are largely to blame.