Friend’s parents think I’m a bad influence when it’s the opposite

Hi everyone,

I’ve been feeling a bit conflicted about a situation and wanted to hear your thoughts. I have a friend who I study with occasionally—maybe a couple of times a week for about two hours. We’ve worked on past papers together, and I even encouraged him to focus on certain questions that came up in our mocks.

The thing is, when we got our mock results back, I did quite well (two A*s and an A), but my friend didn’t do as well as he expected. Now his parents are blaming me, saying I’m a bad influence and partly responsible for his low performance. Two Ds and a C

We had three weeks of winter break to study for the mock and he was in a DIFFERENT country. We had our mock immediately we resumed school.

They think that because we hang out sometimes (even outside of studying or just relaxing), I’ve distracted him from working harder. But here’s the thing: I’m not with him all day. Outside of the few hours we study or hang out, I have no control over how he spends his time. I know he plays a lot of video games, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t study much outside of when we’re together. He is a gamer and was grinding some anime game a day before his mocks because he thought it would be easy.

My friend knows I’m not at fault and even told his parents about my grades, but they still think I’m the reason he’s underperforming. I feel like his parents are using me as a scapegoat to avoid addressing his habits or the actual reasons he didn’t do as well.

I’m thinking about limiting the time we spend together to avoid further drama, but it feels unfair since I genuinely try to encourage him to study. Has anyone been in a similar situation, or do you have any advice on how to handle this?