Hi Christy! Welcome!!!
Extreamly smart or gifted or genius - you are welcome to vent here - clearly you have a frustrated little boy on your hands whom you don't quite know how to deal with.
Before we go on, I 'm going to make a suggestion - since this is a public board, and you never know who is going to be reading, I strongly reccomend you email to the moderator (Mark D) and ask for a different screen name and use fake names for your son - I understand that you live in a large city, but still, better safe than sorry.
I'll just assume for now that you did use a psuedonym.
First thing I would do is check with the preschool and see if they can move him to a room with older kids. It's worth a try. They probably won't want to, since they may already have 'decided' that he is a behavior problem. I see him as a child with a classroom fit problem who has disruptive behavior.
Is his behavior 'casued' by giftedness? My son tended to act out when he was unhappy, and he was unhappy quite a lot, because he was with agemates and he got very frustrted with them. Other kids who were just as unusually gifted as my son never would have acted out, or even hinted that they were miserable, or wouldn't even have been miserable.
So much of this is personality! Some kids are just naturals at seeing the glass half full and really truly enjoy school for what they can find there that works for them. Other kids have a 'longer fuse' and figure out a way to get what is important to them at school. But my son, and I'm guessing your too, really wanted to be admired and appreciated. He was naturally a bit more intense, sensitive and emotionally needy and none of those things are going to win brownie point in preschool. And he really wanted (needed?) those brownie points!!!
Things were 'basically ok' even in daycare until school hit, then we started getting the message that we were bad parents, and started up with the conventional parenting techniques, which did make things worse. My feeling is that our kids are unusual, and motivated by completely different things than most kids, and facing challenges that other kids don't face, so it's not so suprising that conventional parenting techniques don't work on them.
I hope the appointment with the counselor goes well. Is this someone suggested by the psychologist who 'gets' that your son 'unusually smart?' About a year ago I started us a new parenting approach that is designed for 'children who are intense, sensitive and/or emotionally needy' and I wish I had found is earlier.
http://www.energyparenting.com/products/item15.cfmTransforming the Difficult Child - Book
The Nurtured Heart Approach is an amazing set of strategies developed specifically for children with ADHD and other challenging behaviors to facilitate parenting and classroom success. The book is written to take readers through the entire process of learning this remarkable approach and it has a wealth of explanation and examples.
(My son is 13 now, and we were already hearing from daycare at age 2 that 'he has to learn that I have x other children in the room that I have to give each one equal attention!')
We didn't figure out the gifted piece until DS was 7, so good for you for figuring it out so early!
One more question -
You mention that your DH had an unusually high IQ ( I don't use the word Genius to describe potential, only demonstratd talent - so many kids with really high potential never develop that into societally recognized talents) and was miserable in school. I'm wondering if your DH eventually figured out a way to develop his gifts to contribute to society or is still frustrated and disconnected. Either way you will have a bit of a challenge to help your DH be useful to your DS, see what I mean here? Not just your DH, all of us came into this parenting with 'emotional baggage' about our own intelligence. There just isn't much societal support for us to unwrap the mental impressions we have all collected over the years about intelligence.
Love and More Love,
Grinity
