This work aims at providing a simple and improved description of wave breaking in the framework of Boussinesq type modelling. In particular, we evaluate the coupling of both a weakly and a fully non-linear Boussinesq system with a turbulence model. We reformulate an evolution model for the turbulent kinetic energy, initially proposed by Nwogu, and evaluate its capabilities to provide sufficient dissipation in breaking regions. We also compare this dissipationto the one introduced by the numerical discretization.