Thanks for the responses everyone. Good points. I am definitely not overly concerned about it, just curious and hoping it is not a sign of something more, and just wondering if other kids have had similar behaviors.
It's a continuum, of course. But if I saw my child "pretending" to be less capable, I'd be nervous, too! It seems to me the reason why the pretending is happening is the key. If it's a response to teasing or to feeling out of place, then that's a problem. If it's just an experiment, spurred only by the child's observation of those around him, then I'd be less concerned.
I do think it is more of an experiment and not that he is being teased or trying to be like the other kids. I doubt he even showed the other kids his paper with everything misspelled. He definitely enjoys having different work then his classmates, but says to me that sometimes he likes to do the work that the other kids do not because he likes that work, but because he wants to do what they are doing. But frequently he is eager to do things on his own in the class and enjoys that as well. He has made comments about substitutes and has said things like "they thought I was like all the other kids so I had to do their work." So it is clear he feels different sometimes, but he gets happy when he finds similarities (like some kids that are interested in the computer games he likes...and he was happy yesterday because he wrote down a website for a girl to play games at home because she was interested in what he was doing and she asked him about it). So I do think he tries to fit in some, but fitting in isn't a huge deal to him. But I could be wrong. He hums in school and he says sometimes the kids get annoyed and ask him to stop. He says he tells them that he will try but sometimes he can't help it. This doesn't seem to bother him that it annoys them (and might I add it is pretty funny to hear him hum flight of the bumble bee). Last spring when he was 4 and we were at the park and another boy around his age came over to him on the swings. He started acting kind of goofy with the kid and playing tag but was over the top with the silliness. As soon as the other boy left DS started acting all serious and mature and talking to me about math equations. It was clear that he intentionally didn't do that when they were around. This has happened lots of times. I don't necessarily think that is a bad thing to change what you are doing and how you are approaching others at times, providing you don't lose your sense of self and providing that he finds times when he can be that way with true peers. He sometimes he assumes that others aren't all that interested in certain subjects so he doesn't bother bringing them up at all...and you never know, they could be interested.
