Anger often makes us uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable to witness and uncomfortable to feel. Witnessing your child's anger can be especially uncomfortable. In order to relieve this feeling, parents will often encourage children to "stop crying" and say things like "it's nothing to cry about." It's moments like these that plant the seeds of unhealthy anger.

愤怒总是令我们感到不舒服，不管是看到别人发火还是自己感觉气愤都会不舒服。而看到自己孩子生气则更加令我们难以忍受。为了缓解这种不舒服的感觉，父母通常要求孩子“别哭”或者说“没什么好哭的”之类的话。正是这些时候，孩子心中开始种下了不良的宣泄愤怒的种子。

The "stop crying" parent is just doing what they were taught by their own parents, who were probably taught that by their parents, and on and on. While telling your child to "stop crying" isn't emotional child abuse per se, your child may still need help with depression, addiction¹, or other issues later in life. This cycle can be stopped, however, if we learn how to create healthier anger in our kids, and in ourselves.

这些要求孩子“别哭”的家长是在传授他们父母的教育方式，而他们父母又可能是受到自己父母同样的教育，这种教育方式还可往上追溯。事实上让你的孩子“别哭”本身是对孩子的一种冷暴力，孩子可能以后仍然需要人帮助解决抑郁、成瘾以及其他心理问题。但是当我们让孩子和我们自己都学会良性的发怒方式，就能阻断这种恶性循环。

To understand why stuffing emotions away is unhealthy, think of emotions like they are physical wounds. When you cut your finger, your body knows to tighten² blood vessels³ and release white blood cells. In order to let your cut finger heal, you've got to let the body's natural process work. Like the body, the psyche⁴ knows what needs to happen to heal emotional wounds. To let your mind heal, you've got to let yourself go through a healing process as well. If you don't let yourself heal, whenever a similar event happens in your life, the old emotions will emerge and cause you pain. Until you learn to examine your feelings, retrieve⁵ their messages, and let them go, they'll act like cuts that never close.

要了解强行压制情绪为什么不健康，你可以可以把情绪想象成是身体上的伤口。当你切到自己的手指，你的身体会立即反应，收缩血管，释放白细胞。为了让受伤的手指复原，你得让身体的自然机制进行工作。与身体一样，心理也知道如何治愈情绪创伤。要让心灵痊愈，你也需要让自己经历一段修复过程。如果你不经历这一过程，当生活中又发生了类似的事情，这些旧情绪又会重新出现，带来痛苦。如果你不学会怎么检查自己的情绪，读取其中的信息然后再发泄掉，这些情绪就会像永不闭合的伤口一样永远存在。

When we find our anger too uncomfortable to process and let go, we set that model for our children to copy. If a child never sees his or her parent express anger, the parent teaches that child that they, too, should never express anger. Or, if a parent always expresses their anger loudly and hurtfully, or there is a violent relationship between parents, the child may start to think of anger as something that is always frightening.

当我们发觉自己的愤怒太强烈，无法自我修复并发泄出来时，那时我们也会成为孩子学习的模板。如果一个孩子从来没见过他/她的父母表达愤怒，那父母实际上就在教育孩子也决不能表达愤怒。或者，如果有家长总是以大声、有害的方式表达自己的愤怒，又或是父母之间存在暴力行为，那么他们的孩子往往会觉得发怒十分可怕。

The first thing you can do to create healthier anger in your children is to practice creating healthier anger in yourself. Try mindfulness exercises to start feeling more comfortable being angry. It's our resistance to anger that often makes our anger worse. Once you're better at experiencing anger and expressing it in a healthy way – a way that isn't passive-aggressive or an explosion of rage – you'll be able to model a good anger style for your kids.

要让孩子形成良性的愤怒情绪，你自己应该率先实践。在生气时尝试正念法让自己觉得更舒服。对愤怒的抗拒往往只会加剧我们的怒气。一旦你能更好地体验愤怒并且以健康的方式发泄出来——没有消极抵抗或者大发雷霆——那么你就为你的孩子树立了一个良好的解决愤怒的榜样。

Some kids deal with anger by creating a "false self": a child who is perfect for their parents. If you still use this coping skill as an adult, the result can be catastrophic. Inside a false self, you become separated from your true feelings. While you never express anger openly, the "true you" inside has to deal with all those repressed emotions. People who have developed a false self are often passive aggressive and seem shallow because they've tucked away all the feelings that would give them depth and character.

有些孩子处理愤怒情绪时会创造一个“虚假自我”：父母心目中的好孩子。如果长大后，你还用这种方式应对愤怒的话，结果将会是毁灭性的。因为在虚假自我中，你会把自己真正的情绪剥离开来。当你永远无法坦率地表达愤怒情绪时，隐藏在心中的“真你”就不得不处理那些被压抑的情绪。那些建立了虚假自我的人往往表现出消极抵抗的状态，并且显得比较肤浅，因为他们将所有能拓宽深度和塑造品格的情绪都隐藏起来了。

Preventing kids from expressing their feelings may also create shame. While you feel guilt⁶ when you think you've done something wrong, you feel shame when you believe you yourself are wrong. Children can't separate their feelings from their self-image, so when they express their feelings and are told that it's "nothing to cry about," they come to the conclusion that they themselves are bad.

阻止孩子表达愤怒也会导致孩子产生羞耻感。当你觉得自己做了错事，你会感到内疚，而当你相信自己有错时，你会感到羞耻。孩子还不能把个人情绪与自我形象分割开来，因此当他们表达自己的情绪却被告知这“没什么好哭的”，他们会认定自己是坏孩子。

How do we keep kids from creating false selves or from believing that they should be ashamed of their feelings? We need to raise them in an environment where it's safe to express feelings. Once you feel more comfortable with your own anger, you can teach your children why anger is a helpful emotion. When your kid expresses anger, help them examine what it is that has made them angry. Why did it make them angry? How did it do that? Then, you can teach them that while emotions are never wrong and are always valid⁷, our expressions of our emotions are within our control.

那么我们怎么能防止孩子建立虚假自我或是为自己的情绪感到羞耻呢？我们应该在抚养过程中为他们创造一个可以大胆表达情绪的环境。当你自己能适应自己的愤怒情绪时，你就能教育自己的孩子为什么愤怒是一种有益的情绪。当你的孩子表达愤怒时，帮助他们检查愤怒的原因。为什么他们对此感到愤怒？该原因是怎么让他们生气的？然后，你再告诉他们情绪没有对错之分，它们的产生总是有原因的，我们可以控制情绪的表达。

Parenting styles that teach children to stuff their anger creates adults who are bursting at the seams with repressed emotions. People who are afraid of their own anger will never learn how to listen to what their anger is trying to tell them. Instead of teaching our kids that their anger is wrong, that "happy families" are never angry, or that all feelings of anger lead to violence and fear, we can teach our children that anger is ok. Anger is natural, it is normal, and it can be experienced and expressed in a healthy way.

父母让孩子压制愤怒情绪的教育方式会让孩子长大成人后因为这些被压抑的情绪而爆发。害怕自己愤怒的人永远也学不会倾听愤怒所要传递的信息。与其告诉我们的孩子愤怒是不对的，“幸福的家庭”从不会发火，或者怒火最终将导致暴力与恐惧，不如教育我们的孩子愤怒没有错。愤怒是自然的，是普通的，并且我们能以健康的方式体验它、表现它。