TLC Announces Relationship Reality Series SHALOM IN THE HOME
Family counselor, award-winning writer and orator, and best-selling author Rabbi Shmuley Boteach will host TLC´s new series SHALOM IN THE HOME, scheduled to premiere in April 2006. In ten one-hour episodes, Rabbi Shmuley will visit the homes of families in distress, facilitating deep conversations that get to the root of destructive family dynamics. Along the way, he will work with parents to improve both their relationships with each other and with their children.
SHALOM IN THE HOME will air in back-to-back episodes with new series HONEY WE´RE KILLING THE KIDS to form a TLC parenting and relationships program block. According to Rabbi Shmuley, "Every family is a system and when one part is broken, the entire unit breaks down." In SHALOM IN THE HOME, Rabbi Shmuley spends five days with families in crisis, first observing them from a studio in his Airstream trailer; then counseling them in one-on-one sessions; and finally communicating with them via earpiece as they work to put his solutions to the test.
Rabbi Shmuley is a family and relationship counselor and one of the most prominent public voices on relationship, family and cultural issues around the world. At Oxford, where he served as Rabbi to students for eleven years, he played host to and debated some of the world´s leading thinkers and statesmen including Mikhail Gorbachev, Elie Wiesel, Professor Stephen Hawking, Deepak Chopra, Benjamin Netanyahu and Christopher Hitchens, among others. He is the international best-selling author of 15 books, including Judaism for Everyone, WHY CAN'T I FALL IN LOVE?, KOSHER SEX AND FACE YOUR FEAR. He is also an acclaimed syndicated columnist who in 2005 won the American Jewish Press Association´s highest award for excellence in commentary. A winner of the London Times highly prestigious PREACHER OF THE YEAR award, Rabbi Shmuley has appeared in print, radio, and TV around the globe. He is also the father of seven children ... with an eighth on the way.
"In SHALOM IN THE HOME, TLC tackles the problems of modern families: how to keep a marriage exciting after children are born, how to beat the time crunch and how to resolve and heal wounded relationships," said David Abraham, executive vice president and general manager, TLC. "Rabbi Shmuley´s outspoken style is a great match for viewers seeking new learning about the big questions in their families and a fantastic talent to help inaugurate TLC´s family and relationships program block."
According to Rabbi Shmuley, parents must first focus on being good and inspiring people, then on having a healthy, loving relationship, and finally, on being the best parents they can. Shmuley focuses on issues that touch all relationships: how to overcome parenting issues in your past, how to keep the romance once children are born, how to set guidelines and, above all else, how to inspire your children. For Shmuley, there´s no such thing as a bad kid ... so, forget time-outs and naughty mats. If children are out of control, Rabbi Shmuley isn´t coming to speak with them; he´s coming to speak with their parents.
But finding "shalom" in these homes won´t be easy. For one family, problems arise when the father is more invested in documenting his 3-year-old son´s tantrums on a dedicated website than in spending real, quality time with the toddler. To make matters worse, the father has slept on the living room couch for a year, as his son spends every night with mom. In another family, a disconnected dad and an overworked mom endure constant insults, tantrums and even physical attacks from their nine-year-old daughter. When everything comes to a boil on a camping trip, will they be able to resolve their differences and work together as a family?
