Wife to husband: You were behaving like a child! Stamping your foot yelling calling names... How do you expect the children to respect you? The grill wasn’t working — big deal! There are much more serious problems in life than that!

Husband to wife: Yes and that’s exactly the point. You saw that I’d lost it but instead of helping me you started lecturing me right then...that’s the last thing I needed at that time. Why couldn’t you just reach out to me and show me some love and understanding? Obviously I was falling completely apart but you were pouring oil on the fire. I needed you to help me recover and you just became another nagging parent.

Wife: You needed me? That was not obvious!

When our loved ones are in a bad mood or even worse — a terrible mood — it isn’t obvious that they need help. Instead their off-putting behavior puts us off and we run in the other direction. Our hearts aren’t aroused to empathy and our thoughts aren’t compassionate. We pity ourselves for having to live with a spouse or child who decompensates under stress.

And yet the less loveable a person acts the more love he or she needs. An utterly miserable child needs understanding and tender care — and so does an angry spouse. It’s just so hard to see the vulnerability and neediness lurking beneath a cloak of rage.

While protection of oneself and the relationship (and in the case of a child guidance and education) are required these healthy boundary-setting initiatives aren’t incompatible with care and love. But in the moment who feels the love or senses the vulnerability?

Moreover even if one could feel understanding and compassionate at such a moment being nice to a person who is behaving atrociously can backfire. Negative behavior increases when it’s directly followed by increased attention — and this is true whether that attention is positive or negative in nature.

For example if a teacher gives positive forms of attention to a child who is having a meltdown (i.e. bending down for gentle eye contact speaking softly asking questions and showing interest staying quietly and compassionately present) there’s a very good chance that more tantrums will occur. The well-behaved children in the class never get two minutes of such high quality private attention from the teacher while the child who is behaving most inappropriately gets ten minutes of intensive caring! It’s easy to understand how that might lead to more rather than fewer tantrums.

So how does one show compassion and understanding without reinforcing awful behavior? Let the tantrum run its course before showing concern. There’s no point in trying to talk to a person in the midst of having a meltdown; the adrenaline coursing through his system inhibits cortical function rendering him unreachable. He can barely hear let alone consider what you’re trying to say. He may continue to lash out even if you’re being kind — and certainly if you aren’t.

Wait until he’s calm again and instead of reprimanding him about his unacceptable behavior use the calm moment for emotional coaching: name and accept his feelings. “Sweetheart you were so upset about that barbecue situation! What happened? Is the barbecue defective?”

Your nonjudgmental caring approach will sometimes elicit a truthful self-assessment. “I’m sorry I lost it — I must have scared you and the kids. It’s just that the thing wouldn’t ignite and I lost that big account at work today and I don’t know if they’re going to fire me... It was just one more thing going wrong and I cracked. I’m really sorry.”

An answer like this will make sense to anyone who ever overreacted to a small issue after having experienced a really hard day. But sometimes there isn’t even a legitimate excuse for a tantrum. Perhaps the response you get is more like: “Yeah I lost it there. Sorry” or even “Yeah — that stupid barbecue just doesn’t work!”

Again most of us have been there too — melting down because the sky is gray or we’re hungry tired or otherwise at a low point of frustration tolerance. Your understanding of human frailties can be followed by serious requests for better behavior and if the problem continues more intense strategies to address it.

Sometimes just your consistent compassion can help your loved ones approach stress more calmly. As they say “Be the change you want to see.”