The six words no grieving mother wants to hear.

On May 12, a three-year-old boy named Trigg was found unresponsive in his family's pool. Days later, he was dead.

Trigg was the son of 26-year-old influencer Emilie Kiser and her husband Brady. The couple, who are based in the US, welcomed their second child, Theodore, in March this year. 

Since the tragedy, Emilie, who shares videos of her family life with nearly 3.4 million TikTok followers, has taken an understandable step back from social media to mourn.

Watch: 5 things about grief no one really tells you. Post continues below.

But while the family grieves in private, fans have been vocal in their sympathies. Whether for better or worse.

Across TikTok and Instagram comment sections, the same words linger in different forms.

When one mum cries, we all cry.

Hugging my babies extra tight tonight.

This is every mother's worst nightmare.

Each six words, all as unhelpful as each other.

Emilie has since turned off comments on her public profiles.

While most are well-intentioned, these messages seem to centre on the commenter's own emotional experience: I'm hugging my children tighter. In other words, I'm so lucky it wasn't me.

The subtext, however unintentional, is jarring. They highlight the very thing the grieving mother no longer has, her living child. In trying to offer solace, they instead draw a stark, painful contrast.

For someone like Emilie, who has let millions into her life online, there's a false sense of intimacy. Fans feel like they know her. They want to comfort her. But in doing so, some cross a line.

When comments shift from your pain to my fear, or my gratitude, they stop being about support and start being about self. And that's where well-meaning turns into harm.

The 26-year-old's story, sadly, isn't an anomaly.

Six years ago, writer and actor Colin Campbell was driving to Joshua Tree in California with his wife Gail and their two teenage kids, Ruby, 17, and Hart, 14. They were only 20 minutes away from their destination when a repeat DUI offender crashed into their car while going 60kms over the speed limit. The two children were killed on impact.

This time, it wasn't just strangers with misguided grief, it was family and friends who offered erroneous sympathies like "There are no words".

According to the grieving dad, it was the worst thing they could have said.

"Oftentimes that phrase ends a conversation," Campbell noted in his book Finding the Words: Working Through Profound Loss With Hope and Purpose. "The griever needs to process this loss... they need to talk about it to understand it."

There were other words of condolence that, Colin said, were just as hard to swallow.

"At least he had a good life".

"That might sound like a nice thing to say, but you're ultimately minimising the pain," explained the author.

"They're in heaven now".

"Even if you believe they're in heaven, you've still lost them here on earth."

One thing is clear; grief is complex. And it's made even more so by social media.

"Mourning refers to the social and cultural practices around how we express grief, and social media provides new ways to do this," said Lauren Breen, Professor of Psychology at Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia.

"Some can be helpful, like using social media to share memories of a deceased person, which can be really comforting to grieving people. But there can be downsides, too, like when people insert themselves into the situation and show no concern to the people grieving the death."

As "most of us feel great discomfort when faced with death and grief," Breen gives people some grace when it comes to misguided comments.

"People don't know what to say or do, and it is very easy to draw upon outdated ideas about grief, respond with clichés, and provide unsolicited advice," she told Mamamia.

As for the public figure experiencing the loss, social media "can be a double-edged sword".

"It can be helpful to know that people care about you or that someone you loved also meant a lot to other people. But our feelings towards media figures and celebrities are one-sided," she said,

"There's no reciprocity to the feelings of connection and intimacy. People in the public eye then can feel like others are using that connection for their own ends, such as to be performative in grief or empathy."

That isn't to say we should ignore tragedy.

"It is not helpful to avoid loss and grief, but we should avoid commenting in ways that make it about ourselves," said the psychologist.

When consoling loved ones, Breen says to "come from a place of compassion and don't try to 'fix' grief".

"Just be there for a grieving person. Be guided by what you know about them and listen carefully to what they have to say. Educate yourself about grief so that you don't fall back on outdated ideas and clichés, don't minimise the loss, and don't make it about you.

"Don't say, 'Let me know if you need anything,' because they might not have any idea what they need. Instead, make a specific offer of help, and then they can say yes or no to it. And check-in with them over time rather than just once."

Feature Image: Instagram/@emiliekiser