I have a 6 year old daughter who has just begun saying "I don't know" to everything. Example she will constantly say "I don't know if i need to itch". She implies I don't know to everything constantly. I assume that this is some type of a compulsion. Are their any suggestions on how to approach her problem. When we tell her that indeed she does know what she needs to do it does not register, she continues to repeat the phrase. Thank you all in advance for your comments and suggestions!!!

My daughter is 6 and she gives me a lot of "I don't knows". I think it is a phase to be honest. It's like they want to fit in or say the "right" thing so it's easier to say "I don't know" and then base their decisions off of what you say. Does that make sense?

With my daughter, I just let her know that she can tell me anything. She always seems worried about what daddy will think and will he get mad and stuff like that. Do you think that could be any of your daughter's concern? All you can do is encourage her to think for herself and hopefully she will start doing it.

I'm not sure if this helps you or not since our daughters could be doing this for different reasons.

my daughter has a mild case of ocd and she recently stopped a similar behavior. she would never answer any question with a definate answer. she would say maybe or i'm not sure..things like that. she got over it after about a year. but the thing with her is, she gives up one compulsion for another...by the way she's 8 years old and has had ocd for about 3 years.