Bedouin mothers' sense of authentic inner compass as a parenting resource: Relations with autonomy-supportive parenting and adolescents' well-being

Sense of authentic inner compass (AIC) is the feeling that one knows what is important to oneself because one has values, aspirations, and goals with which one deeply identifies. Past research demonstrated the benefits of AIC, but there is no published research on parental dispositions promoting youth AIC. To increase knowledge of this issue, we examined whether mothers' sense of AIC is associated with a corresponding sense of AIC in their children, and explored autonomy-supportive child-rearing practices that may serve as pathways linking mothers' AIC with adolescents' AIC and subsequent well-being. We examined a Bedouin Israeli sample because it represents a fairly patriarchal, autonomy-eschewing, context, where the benefits of mothers' authenticity and autonomy-support are not obvious.