Center island in Kitchen get rid of it. How about a nice kitchen table where the family sits down and eats dinner and maybe after it is cleaned up the kids begin their homework on the kitchen table.
I'm a single father raising two daughters, one 7 the other 17. The concept of a "cleaned up" kitchen table is completely foreign to me.
Most kitchen islands have a place to set. The island is there for extra work space if a family really cooks and they do have a purpose.