Blue Bloods

I like the TV show called Blue Bloods.  It is a show about a Catholic New York family of four generations.  The great grandfather is the retired police commissioner, his son, the grandfather is the current police commissioner, his two sons are police officers and his daughter is a district attorney.  Then there are three children. 
What I like about the show is the family emphasis.  In every episode they have a time around the table at a family meal in which they first ask the blessing then during the meal there is a discussion that takes place.  Most of the time the children take an active part in the discussion.
The breakdown of our society comes when the family breaks down and one leading factor in that is the fact that families do not eat together.  If they do eat together then often the TV is on or someone is talking of the cell phone.  A friend of my son had a rule that at meal times the phones would all go into a basket by the door.  They were to be left there for the entire meal time. 
Here is a paragraph from a 2003 Gallop poll:

Also, dinnertime might be one of the few opportunities during the day that parents get to talk with their children about what's happening in their lives. All parents want to know what's going on with their children, but a 2003 study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University suggests that family dinners can have some concrete benefits for teenagers. The study found that teens who have dinner with their families two nights a week or less are twice as likely to take drugs, more likely to be "high stress," more likely to say they are often bored, and less likely to perform well in school than teens who eat with their families 5 to 7 times a week.

Maybe there is something we can learn from television.