The morning after her father died, Susanne Jones had to go to work. She was waitressing in Germany at the time, and one of her regulars—a man she saw often but barely knew—could tell something was wrong and asked her what had happened. She tearfully told him the truth: Her dad had passed away the night before. And then she watched him freeze.
“He literally turned his entire body away from me,” Jones recalls—shoulders angled off, face averted. He aimed an “I’m so sorry” at the empty air in front of him, then added, “I hope everything’s gonna be better.” Her father was dead, she thought to herself. Nothing was going to be better.
Decades later, Jones researches supportive communication at the University of Minnesota, and she’s studied this exact moment: why the people who want to help so often get it wrong, and what actually works instead. That long-ago customer wasn’t cruel, she says; he was overwhelmed. Most of us are when faced with someone else’s tears.
Here’s what to say—and do—when someone in front of you starts to cry.
First, resist the urge to fix it
Here’s the instinct nearly all of us have the moment the floodgates open: do something. Our desire to say the perfect thing or make the tears stop comes from a loving place, yet it’s usually the wrong move. “It feels uncomfortable because we feel this need to fix it,” says Amanda Holmstrom, a professor in the department of communication at Michigan State University who studies social support. “This person feels badly, and I want to make them stop—for their own sake, maybe to decrease our own discomfort.” Yet when someone is crying their eyes out, they’re usually not in a place to hear the perfect thing anyway, which means you don’t have to put so much pressure on yourself to find it.
Betty Ferrell has watched this play out for nearly five decades. As director of nursing research and education at City of Hope in Duarte, Calif.—and a nurse for 49 years—she helped build the field of hospice care back when it was a brand-new idea. One of the earliest lessons she learned still guides her today. “A little phrase that we would often use is, ‘Don’t grab the Kleenex too quickly,’” she says. It sounds minor, but think about the message a fistful of tissues actually sends. “If I see you’re weeping, and I grab the Kleenex,” Ferrell says, “your thought is, ‘Oh, I’m supposed to quit crying.’”
So instead of reaching for the tissues, pause. Take a breath, center yourself, and move closer, not further away. “Getting close to you is a different message than moving away,” Ferrell says. “I’m saying to you, ‘I’m here, and I’m not afraid of your tears.’” If the relationship allows for it, that message can come through physically, too. Jones suggests “a light touch with a hand to the shoulder or the upper arm.”
And if you truly don’t know what to say? Then don’t say anything. “You can just be there with them, and the nonverbals go a long way,” Holmstrom says. Sometimes your only job is to sit close by and let the person know, without a single word, that you aren’t going anywhere.
What to say once the tears slow
Words do have a place—they just come a little later than you’d think. “When the crying subsides, then the verbals can kick in,” Jones says. Until then, talking mostly adds pressure; afterward, it becomes much more helpful.
When you do start to speak, skip the yes-or-no questions—especially the reflexive “are you OK?” It seems gentle, but “the message is, ‘You better get OK,’” Ferrell says. Suddenly the person feels they have to pull it together and reassure you. Lead with a statement instead, one that opens a door rather than shutting it: Something like, “I know you just got some really hard news,” or “I heard what happened. I’m so sorry.” Then go quiet, and let them fill the space.
When a person tells the story of what happened, something shifts. They “gain a little bit of distance to the event,” Jones says—a process researchers call cognitive reappraisal, one of the most powerful coping tools. You don’t have to talk anyone into feeling better. You just have to ask, listen, and let the story do its quiet work. “You don’t have to be a therapist,” Jones says. “You just have to be.”
What to do when a total stranger is crying
When a stranger is crying in public—on the train, in the grocery store, on a park bench—should you say something? Pretend you didn’t see? Here, Holmstrom says, you have to use context clues. “Sometimes you can tell that they’re trying to hide that they’re crying,” and then it’s kindest to give them space. But if they seem open to it, leaning in can be a good call. You might walk near them and offer, “Hey, you seem upset—what’s going on?” or something concrete: “Is there someone I can call for you? Do you need anything?” And if you can’t decide whether to step in? “If you think ‘maybe,’ then don’t hold back,” she says. “Worst-case scenario, they say, ‘No, no, I’m fine,’” and you’ve lost nothing.
What not to say when someone is crying
Some of the most common comforting lines are the ones that actually make things worse—and nearly all of them share one flaw: they minimize. Ferrell has heard them all. “It’s gonna be OK.” “You’re tough, you can handle this.” “It’s only Stage III.” Each one, however well-intentioned, rushes to reassure—and when tears start flowing, you should try to avoid “giving people advice, assuring them it’s all gonna be OK, minimizing,” Ferrell says.
A few more worth retiring:
The classic “don’t cry”
“It’s so invalidating,” Holmstrom says. Tears aren’t a choice someone can simply turn off. Telling them not to cry only adds another burden: Now they feel like they have to manage your discomfort, too.
The silver lining
When someone’s hurting, it’s tempting to reach for the bright side: at least it happened now and not later; at least you still have your health. But Holmstrom warns against it. “People try to find silver linings—do not recommend,” she says, because in the moment they read as a dismissal of how bad things feel for them.
Making it about you
A little “I’ve been there” can help someone feel less alone. But “be careful about turning it around too much to yourself,” Holmstrom warns. Drift too far into your own story, and you lose the thread—and risk them having to comfort you.
Rushing into advice
The impulse to solve someone’s problem is understandable, but it can come too soon. “The more I know, the more I can be helpful,” Ferrell says. That’s why she recommends asking open-ended questions and listening before you start offering solutions.
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