christi wrote "I'm afraid that even if we do an early skip now, he'll still need at least one skip later on, then we'll need to look at completely different options for middle school. The older he gets, the more apparent this becomes, and the more "different" he seems than most kids his age."
It is usually easier to skip the lower grade(s) but it is also possible to skip at middle school level. My two daughters were young in their class to begin with, then they skipped 6th grade. So now they are sometimes 2-3 years younger than their peers. But that did not cause any big issue both in middle and high school. Especially in high school, kids are used to the idea that students of different grade/age are in same class.
Although they look suspiciously young, they fit in quite nicely. Other kids just shrug off when they eventually find out about their age. Both girls take pride of the fact that they are the youngest in their grade and many kids who are much older ask them for help. Occasionally they do complain that their friends are driving and they have to wait until the senior year.
It may sound like a bit sexist, but things may be different for boys. A girl who is 2 year younger is no big deal; a boy in similar position may not be that cool. I read some book saying that a boy skipped 3 grades and complained that he can not find a date. All girls who he went to school with were older and he did not know any girl of his own age. But I guess that is more a temporary problem, things will work out once he hits graduate school :-).
