Yaaaaay, more parent drama.

Hey I was in a similar situation as a kid. My mom homeschooled me for primarily religious reasons, as well as because the public schools in my section of the Southern USA were very bad academically, even though I wanted to go to a public or private school. While I didn't have too many problems getting into college (which was a big worry of mine until I actually got the acceptance letter back), I still would have preferred to be in a more typical school environment. The group I was in was filled with people who seemed like quasi-normal kids until someone mentioned Harry Potter and was largely ostracized by half of the group for being interested in "the things of the occult". While my parents did believe HP (not the printer company) was evil, they didn't like that a large number of the people there were extremely controlling toward their kids' social lives, especially a friend of mine who I've mentioned about elsewhere on a past highly-upvoted comment of mine.

Overall, to survive a situation like that, you need to learn to do three things: 1. Be able to say the sky is green (or that you're only checking Disney websites) with a straight face and have people actually believe you, 2. Learn enough about technology to be able to know when tools are being installed on your computer and how to go around them (for instance, booting up in safe mode with networking often causes such tools to not start), and, most importantly, 3. Take steps towards your eventual future. This means study for the SAT and ACT when you first enter high school, know what SAT Subject Tests are and when to take them, keep your grades up, and try to take up some hobby that is a marketable skill. For many people that is computer programming -- Microsoft has a free development environment and tutorials for the language C#.

Also have something to do to keep your sanity -- whether it be gaming, ponies, or whatever. Just be sure it doesn't take up all of your life, and always have some backup plan just in case whatever it is goes away (in fact, have a backup plan for everything).

Another side note, try to make your own money as soon as possible... in most cases this will mean trying to get a part time job, depending on what state you're in you may be able to do that at 14, though many places won't hire until you're 16. Even if your parents try to restrict your spending, it's a lot easier to get around their restrictions if you have your own funds. Keep at least a few hundred dollars hidden around for emergencies and try not to let too much money sit in a bank account since that legally belongs to your parents; when you turn 18 get an account of your own and insist that whatever money you have be deposited into it.

/r/MLPLounge Thread