The Walt Disney Co. announced today that it will ban smoking in its family-targeted, Disney-branded films and will “discourage” the depiction of smoking in its Touchstone and Miramax motion pictures (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/25/AR2007072501051.html). I will be joining a panel of commentators on FOX News Channel, this Saturday (July 28) at 11:48 am PST/2:48 pm EST, to discuss whether Disney is going too far in coddling children and hiding the dangers of real life from them. Other questions include whether there might not be better ways to keep our kids from smoking.

I’ve got some more thinking to do, but my initial thoughts are that this is a positive step. Movies and TV tend to glamorize smoking and refraining from showing actors looking cool with the smoke curling from their lips could help prevent children from taking on this unhealthy habit. For decades, the tobacco industry has benefited from the free advertising of film and TV characters smoking away. There are also the findings from organizations such as the nonprofit American Legacy Foundation, which found that kids with “the highest exposure to smoking in movies were nearly three times as likely to start smoking.”

It is important to identify the slippery slope of Disney’s ban in that it can interfere with artistic license. I’m not sure how I feel about grown-up branded movies not showing smoking if that is somehow inherent to a character. However, it has been frequently noted that movie stars, like the forever stylish Humphrey Bogart, inspired people to smoke by puffing away on the silver screen.

I’d really like to hear your feedback on this issue as I try to consider all the angles.

In a country of such massive resources, it still boggles my mind that so many of our nation’s children go without proper health care. I do realize that the parents of these children bear the responsibility of going to great lengths to help provide for their kids, but the price of health care continues to rocket skyward, even for those who could have easily afforded it a couple of years ago.

Some of our representatives, both Republicans and Democrats, have taken a step toward sharing the burden of ensuring our children’s health (http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8QFT1900.html ). Today, a Senate committee voted to reauthorize the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which will help subsidize the health care costs for families who make too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough for private insurance. Hopefully, this is the beginning of focusing on this vital issue, especially since keeping less fortunate families healthy assists in the health quality of everyone.

I give out a lot of advice, but I always do it with the caveat that I, as a parent, I am thrown for a loss more often than I ever imagined. This summer, with three boys between the ages of 2 and 9, I’m finding the issue of stability to be paramount. While my whole family enjoys the freedoms of summer, without school and the usual extra-curricular activities, the lack of consistency is hard on everyone. We have more instances of siblings pummeling each other when they are on their days off from camp, more tears and tantrums over TV and snacks, and more frustration on the part of my wife and I because we have to be creative with so many days.

I always want more time with the children, so I feel guilty that — after several weeks of all-kids-all-the-time — I occasionally count the days until school starts. I don’t want to feel this way, but seem to be caught in a modern paradox. Given our contemporary lifestyles in which kids no longer go out to play in the streets or go fishing at the pond for hours, we parents must play “cruise director” much more, especially in the summer months.

So what are my wife and I doing about it? We’re now trying to duplicate as much of the school season schedule as possible. We’re getting ourselves up at a regular time in the mornings and doing breakfast with the kids before they get cranky. We’re heading out of the house a lot because we find that we get complacent and laze about until the kids go bonkers. We’re frequently (again, this is still imperfect) keeping to the bedtime schedule as well, though it’s easy to let the little ones stay up later without school in the morning.

There’s lots more we have to do. Please post your suggestions as to what you do to create consistency in the summertime.