Dealing with aggressive children

Dealing with Difficult children is a huge challenge in today's child care field.
There are policies to follow and behavior management guidelines to abide by. The question remains are there more and more children with special needs today? Or have we taken all of the options of discipline away from the adult and therefor have run out of ideas on how to handle difficult behaviors? So it feels like there are more difficult children.
Parents alike are at a loss as to what to do with difficult children.
Years ago time out was given to children. (As seen on the Nanny show) Where you can sit a child on a time out to think about their behavior, this is no longer allowed in some centers.
I personally think there are no consequences for children anymore and they know this. On that note I must add in my experience the difficult children have in many cases been the bright children. I have had children tell me, "what are you going to do about it, there is nothing you can do".
Looking back I doubt that an extended time out harmed a child, however it became over used.
To avoid further aggressive behavior in a child during the out burst my suggestion would be do not deal with the actual problem until the child has settled down. An example would be two children having a fight, the aggressive one started the fight and hurt the other child, the teacher walks up to the aggressive child of-course feeling frustrated and using a firmer tone and the aggressive child escalates even more therefor becoming physical with the teacher or who ever is in the path. A calming period needs to be first, depending on the situation and the person, some children will calm with a hug, some will calm with changing the subject. I have found for myself the less talking the better because the child is not in the frame of mind to even listen as they are still angry and frustrated. Once the calming period is over discuss with the child and who ever else may have been involved what they could have done differently to avoid the incident.
If an injury has occurred and ice was needed get the child to hold the ice pack on the injured to help the healing, this action speaks louder then the word sorry that we usually make the child say but does not actually mean it.
Tip For The Day: Stay calm yourself, remind yourself that this is a child who needs your help to get out of a bad situation that they have put themselves in.