You care about your college freshman’s grades, and you wish your freshman cared a little more. Good grades do make a difference, because a college GPA can qualify or disqualify your freshman from a potential position.

You’ve likely tried to communicate you care about your child’s grades. Maybe you’ve tried to motivate him with rewards or encouraging compliments. Maybe you’ve tried threatening him (e.g. stop paying his school bills). So far, neither approach has resulted in consistent earning of higher grades.

What should you do? While you can assist your struggling freshman, you may need to take a step back. Should you care so much about your freshman’s GPA? Your well-meaning chats about your freshman’s grades may actually do more harm than good. Below are 4 reasons you should refuse to stress about your freshman’s GPA.

1. Your college freshman experiences less consequences.

If you fixate on your freshman earning good grades, your freshman likely feels little pressure to improve. Why? He may feel as if he can never please you, he can do little else to improve, or your level of concern is overkill. In any case, his own personal consequences are mild.

Why College Parents Should Stop Stressing About GPAs

Seeing your freshman fail or do less than his best is agonizing. You know your child is capable of doing extremely well in college. However, he seems to put in little effort or continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.

Instead of assisting or guiding, you may need to take a step back. Eventually your freshman will grow weary of the painful consequences resulting from a low GPA. Then, your child will realize he needs to change his studying habits and work hard to improve his GPA.

Letting go is incredibly difficult when you know that your freshman’s choices now result in an irrevocably low GPA, but refusing to stress will result in your freshman owning his grades. He will ultimately realize he is responsible for his GPA. If he wants his GPA to improve, he will need to put in the hard work.

Feeling the weight of a career with a mediocre to poor GPA is healthy for your freshman. However, parents often feel personally responsible for their student’s poor grades. They feel as if they failed their college student by not providing constant reminders or adequate motivation. In addition, parents can take their child’s failure to heart. Know that your freshman is responsible for his grades. His academic failures are his, not yours.

How can you help your freshman feel the consequences? First, refuse to bail him out. As a parent, you may be tempted to make a call to a teacher, an advisor, or a dean on your freshman’s behalf. Please carefully think before making this call, because you are communicating something important to your freshman. You are telling him that you will always be there to solve his problems.

Calling on your freshman’s behalf sounds caring and considerate, but always being there to help is actually not healthy for your young adult. You cannot always solve his problems or provide a solution in the future. In the present, your freshman is now legally responsible for his grades, meaning you cannot access his grades without his permission.

Calling on your freshman’s behalf continues a status of dependency. If your desire is for your freshman to become an intelligent, competent, and successful young adult, refuse to make this call. Let your freshman own his GPA and take steps to improve it.

Second, refuse to offer unsolicited advice or guidance. Your freshman is learning how to navigate disappointment, failure, and problems. He will not, however, learn how to do this on his own if you are quick to provide advice.

Offering unwanted advice may also cause your freshman to resent you, feeling as if you do not trust or respect his decision-making skills. While he may make some disastrous mistakes, this process is part of the learning process. He needs to learn how to own up to mistakes, solve his own problems, and get back up after falling.

Your freshman must experience consequences if he is to feel responsible for his GPA. Let him feel the painful effects of his bad grades, even if he must repeat classes. This experience can literally be life-changing.

2. Your college freshman earns lower grades.

Many parents show a great deal of concern for their student’s GPAs due to the cost of education. College is expensive and a sizable investment. If you are funding your freshman’s education, your freshman probably has only a small glimpse of how much his education truly costs.

Your freshman likely cannot to fund his college education. You, as a result, may be paying almost entirely for his education. Consider the possible side effects of you, not your freshman, paying for college.

In an article for the New York Times, Tamar Lewin cautions parents who fund their child’s college education. “Students with parental fundings,” according to University of California’s sociology professor Dr. Laura Hamilton, “often perform well enough to stay in school, but dial down their academic efforts.” In addition, her research found that “parental aid [actually] decreases student GPA.”

Because you pay the bills, you care far more about your child’s GPA. You feel like you should get a quality product as a result of paying the hefty price, but your freshman is not delivering. Consider requiring your freshman to have some “skin in the game.” Requiring your freshman to pay for at least a portion of his college education can help provide some necessary motivation. He will likely value his education much more after paying for it.

Even though the price is costly, your child’s education is much more than a simple product. Your freshman’s GPA is only a small part of college, because a college education has value beyond a numerical value or piece of paper. Help him take ownership and responsibility for his grades by passing the baton to him.

How can you give your freshman ownership over his GPA? First, refuse to offer reminders. Many well-meaning parents are unintentionally harming their college students by continuing to parent their children as high school students. Your freshman does not need the hand-holding or step-by-step guidance he once did in high school.

Wake-up calls, text-message reminders, and Facebook messages are likely continuing your freshman’s dependency on you. Make a conscious choice to refrain from offering reminders about assignments, required school events, and meetings. Your freshman is capable of remembering these things on his own.

Second, refuse to make his grades the central topic of your conversations. Your freshman will likely feel you have ownership of his grades if your phone conversations largely consist of talk about them. His grades are his, not yours, so do not feel the need to spend great amounts of time discussing how high or low his grades are. Let your freshman be the one to initiate conversations about his grades.

Focus your phone conversations on the learning process and your freshman’s experiences. Your freshman will soon learn that he needs to take ownership of his grades, because you will not monitor his grades. He will see that his GPA is completely up to him.

Third, refuse to step in. You may be tempted to step in and take action, but your freshman may suffer as a result. Sometimes you will need to allow your freshman to struggle with academics.

You may feel heartless and even slightly cruel, but your freshman needs to learn how to study, manage his time, and approach teachers for assistance. Refusing to step in and help him can be the best thing to happen to him. This process teaches him he can successfully solve his own problems.

Side note: There are occasions in which you will need to step in and provide assistance. Be aware of these and carefully monitor your freshman’s status. If your freshman encounters any of these 4 scenarios, consider stepping in to assist your freshman.

3. Your college freshman feels pressure to lie.

If you regularly pressure your freshman about his grades, he may be feeling stressed. While some of this pressure is merely part of college, not all of it is conducive to improving his grades.

Unfortunately, many freshman feel pressure to be dishonest with their parents about their GPA. You want your freshman to have integrity and be honest with you regardless of the consequences.

However, some freshmen crumble under tremendous academic pressure. They would rather tell a white lie about their grades than face their parent’s wrath and disappointment. They are tired of the lectures, the threats, the rants, and choose to conceal how bad their grades are instead.

You want to know the true state of your freshman’s grades. How can you stay informed without pressuring your child to be dishonest? First, communicate what academic information you expect him to share. Many parent-child expectations can be left unsaid, especially when it comes to college grades.

Have an open conversation with your freshman on the phone or face-to-face (if possible). Tell him what academic information you would like him to share with you on a regular basis. Be sure you clarify what a “regular basis” means as well. After sharing your expectations, allow him to negotiate or request information from you.

Second, control your response to your freshman’s GPA. You can easily find yourself in two pitfalls: excessively bragging and complimenting your freshman or chewing out your freshman in anger. Do your best to avoid both scenarios.

Your freshman does need to hear encouragement from you, especially in the busiest times of the school year. Some compliments, however, will actually do more harm than good. Avoid giving these types of compliments if you want to help your freshman grow and develop.

Your freshman does need to hear correction from you as well. However, be careful not to crush him with your remarks. If you know that you tend to struggle with impatience and anger, consider calling him back another time after you’ve had time to cool off. Carefully plan what you will say in advance.

Third, remember the long-term goal. Your ultimate goal for your freshman is not to earn a certain GPA but rather to develop into a successful adult. When you find yourself becoming irritated with your freshman’s low grades, keep in mind that good grades are not the only key to your freshman’s future success.

Your freshman’s future does not entirely hang on a 4.0 GPA or earning all As. Pressuring your student to earn the same or better grades as he did in high school may be unrealistic. College classes are typically much more difficult than high school courses.

4. Your college freshman learns differently.

Your freshman may not be a “school person.” In other words, school may be difficult for him. He does not naturally do well on tests, quizzes, or essays. Every grade is a result of much preparation.

Poor grades or a lower GPA are not necessarily a sign that your freshman is not trying. Some freshmen are simply not a good fit for college. Other freshmen are simply do not do well on traditional school assessments. This is not a sign that your freshman is unintelligent or incapable. Instead, your freshman’s skills and passions may be in other areas.

Your well-meaning comments about majoring in something that makes money may go in one ear and out the other, but your freshman may need to come to this realization on his own. Unfortunately your freshman’s passions may not pay for everyday expenses, but he will not learn this valuable lesson until he experiences it for himself.

On the other hand, your freshman may be truly trying to earn As or Bs but with little success. As a former teacher, I would encourage you to remember that not all As (or Bs for that matter) are created equal. Your freshman’s somewhat low grade is not necessarily a sign that he is academically unsuccessful or in need of assistance.

For example, in my time teaching a freshman-level communications course I often heard comments like: “I put in so much time but only got a B” or “How are my grades getting lower when I’m working harder than I did at the beginning of the semester?” The reality is that as the semester continues, the speech assignments increased in difficulty. Earning a B was actually a very good grade for a speech, because few students are A-level speakers.

Some courses are more difficult for students than others. Earning a C on an English paper may require much hard work from your freshman, but this grade is probably not a sign that your freshman needs tutoring or to change majors. Your freshman’s hard work is paying off, but his letter grade may not reflect the payoff.

How can you help your freshman stop comparing himself? First, refuse to compare his grades to those earned by your other children. Your freshman is keenly aware that his siblings are more gifted than him in certain areas. While you may mean to motivate your freshman, these comments may result in unhealthy sibling rivalries and tense relationships.

Second, refuse to be conditional in your affection. If your freshman earns a B instead of an A, you do not love him any less. So, be sure your words do not communicate an unconditional acceptance or love for your freshman, because your freshman’s worth is not found in his GPA.

Your freshman’s GPA is significant. However, his grades are not the most important outcome of his freshman year. Your freshman can take ownership of his GPA and see the long-term effects of his grades, so refuse to stress about your child’s GPA.