Having trouble limiting your kids' TV time? You might want to review your own viewing habits. According to a new study, the amount of TV parents watch strongly influences their children’s viewing habits, even more so than traditional predictors such as putting a TV in a child’s room, household rules over TV use and parents watching TV with their children.  

Data collected by researchers from the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania from a large online survey shows that parents’ TV viewing habits are the single strongest predictor of their children’s TV viewing—across all age groups of kids. Every hour a parent spends watching TV results on average in an extra 23 minutes of a child watching TV. The study authors theorize that children may be observing how often their parents watch TV and use that info as a model for their own viewing habits.

Previous research has linked excessive TV-watching with poor health and social outcomes in kids, such as obesity, poor sleep, lack of physical activity and lower grades. And for more than a decade, the American Academy of Pediatrics has strongly recommended that parents limit children's screen time. Nevertheless, the amount of time kids spend in front of the TV has only slightly lessened over this period. The findings of this research give moms and dads greater incentive to evaluate their own TV habits. It appears that by watching less TV ourselves, our kids can certainly benefit. And perhaps so can we—think more quality family time, couple time, sleep time.

Fess up, are you a candidate for reduced screen time?