Family stuff is aired on Facebook, not in person

DEAR AMY >> Our daughter-in-law occasionally vents her feelings about a family problem on Facebook. My wife and I do not use Facebook, and so we hear about this from friends.

I would like to sit down with her and our son, and explain that family matters should be kept in the family and not vented on Facebook.

I do not want to see a wedge being driven between us, but I am afraid this will happen if she continues.

Do you think this is the right way to approach this? — Concerned

DEAR CONCERNED

>> It would be very easy for you to say, “Family matters should be kept in the family, and not vented on Facebook,” and for your daughterin-law and son to respond, “Well, we disagree.”

And then they could take to Facebook and complain about how you and your wife are always telling them how to behave.

It is not your job to tell your daughter-in-law and son about the appropriate venues to express themselves.

It IS your job to tell them how their behavior affects you.

Your daughter-in-law might believe (naively, of course) that she is talking to her friends when she vents about family matters on FB. But (if her posts are public), when she posts on Facebook she is talking not only to her friends, but to their friends, and then their various friends and connections — through an endless series of loops, until it has reached all the way to me.

Before talking about this, you should have specific examples of what it is that you object to (your friends might be exaggerating this issue).

And then you should say, “We find it embarrassing to learn from other people on social media that you have a problem with us. Can we please talk and work things out together?”

Then you must leave it to them to make a series of choices. You must make choices, too.

In the future, when friends report this to you, you might respond, “We understand that this is happening, but we’d rather not hear about it.”