re: I've always thought that you need to give kids room to screw-up so that you can identify the real problems.
By allowing them to screw up, I mean we need to give them the room to develop their own outlets to vent their anger, frustration, etc...
We used to let kids fight in the parking lot after school to do some of this, but now we threaten any who would have such a fight with expulsion...
So instead of allowing it to vent in a moderately "violent" scuffle,the anger gets held inside and is not allowed to vent.
Most kids overcome their anger, in fact most would never even get to the "scuffle" stage if it was available...but there are a few who can't deal with holding it in and eventually they explode.
give them room to scuffle, and then you could identify the ones with a chronic anger management problem.
Scott Evil