i wanted to add this to the prior post:

after we got done talking about what happened at home, i told my student to yell, " I AM SMART!!!!" and he DID!!!! i hope he truly believes it!!!! to make him feel better i then asked him what he wanted to do (play with me,draw, exc) . There was a snow man on the wall we were next to and he pointed to it....so we went back to class and he drew a snowman and cut it out! i hope that made him happy. i really do. to see tears down that boys face was the worst thing in the world for me- the worse freakin thing. how do you catch these things? how does a person know if a child is suffering at home?

=(