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# Parents step into starring role as good manner idols
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/parents-step-into-starring-role-as-good-manner-idols/
- Published: 2007-02-20T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T00:05:20.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: local, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*SANTA MONICA Taylor vs. Britney. Who do your kids identify with?*

*By IRENE MANAHAN Special to the Daily Press*

According to the National League Junior Cotillions,American Idol winner Taylor Hicks heads the best-mannered list, while Britney Spears earns the dubious title of most ill-mannered.

With this generation’s ever-increasing idolization of pop celebrities in mind, one can’t help but wonder if common courtesy is still in fashion for our fickle youth?

Child development specialist Rose Selesnick doesn’t believe that recent trends in culture have spawned ill-mannered youngsters.

“Expectations may have been more strict before, but I don’t think that the idea of being polite is gone at all,”said Selesnick.

A culture cannot necessarily “lose” its etiquette according to experts.

“When we talk about manners we’re talking about things that are passed down generationally. Parents learn things from their parents and teach that to their children,” said Pamela Perry- Hunter, M.D.

“In the past,people probably had more of an attitude that kids should do what they’re told to do, but these days, we have given our youth more leeway and are trying to be more understanding in that,they are children.But with stressors and other things that come and go, people aren’t necessarily paying attention to manners as they are to other things,”she added.

Among other things, good manners should be something learned at home, Selesnick believes.

“It’s important to use good manners around children. They pick them up by modeling the behavior of their parents,” said Selesnick.

Demonstrations of courtesy should start when the child is young according to Perry-Hunter.

“When they are in pre-school parents can start teaching them about ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ behaving in public, discouraging tantrums and inappropriate table manners,”said Perry-Hunter.

“I think that things get complicated when you live here.

From manners page 3 I think that they’re going to model the behavior of anyone they like, adore or want to be like. They go through a whole lot of stages that they identify with and that parents might not.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 20, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/022007.pdf?ref=smdp.com)