I AM outraged. So are my young children. We are outraged by the fact that we have to see brains and three-dimensional respiratory tubes while sitting in traffic behind public buses on our way to school. The joy of watching the recent Olympic highlights was taken from us as we were insulted by those horror ads that Channel Seven continually showed during prime time.

Even radio ads are starting to torment our tender ears. The latest "no smoking" or "smoking kills" campaign could not be more confronting.

My five-year-old daughter has been chased by walking brains in her sleep since she was exposed to the ads. My eight-year-old son is trying terribly hard to block out the vivid picture content to no avail as we are bombarded by open hearts, lungs and all sorts of other rotten organs.

These are the centre of wild discussions in the back of my car. The colour and contents of brains and tubes are compared with a cheese-and-ham roll. Speculation continues at home about whether Nanna's organs look equally disgusting. The only positive outcome so far is for my six-year old, who finds brains fascinating. He is a maths champion and talks about cutting up brains on our wooden chopping board. He might end up being a surgeon. Well, there is some hope.

There is not much hope, however, for a nation that talks itself stupid about movie ratings, provocative nude photographs in public galleries and providing high-quality child care, while at the same time its children are being exposed to sliced brains and dissected lungs, a scenario that resembles a horror movie. The anatomy classes at medical school would achieve a more child-friendly rating, I reckon.

Naturally, I do understand the intention behind these advertising campaigns. But please - not at the expense of our youngest and most vulnerable generation. Whether exposing young children to these ads is effective in later years is questionable. At this stage, I am more concerned about the psychological impact it could have on my children's tender brains at an age when they don't have the ability to deal with such provocative and visual confronting sensory input.

So, I am not sure which has a more damaging impact: smoking or being brainwashed by horror ads.