<p>I am going to college next year, and I need to get out of this house. My parents (and older brother, who thinks he's my parent) are breathing down my neck all the time; I've been grounded since October because my brother caught me smoking weed and told my mom. My mom thinks I'll spend every day doing drugs and drinking and having sex if I live in a dorm. The college is literally a five-minute drive from my house. I want the college experience, try to be independent. I have a learning disability, and my mom keeps telling me I won't be able to handle living off-campus. But I'll never be able to get out of the cyclical rut I'm in and make friends and have fun if I keep living at home, having to ask my mom's permission if I want to hang out with someone or if I wanna go out to eat. It's three against one, and since I'm a dumb, inexperienced teenager who has "always made the wrong choices," I don't know what to do. (They are not paying for it; however, since my mom is an employee at the college, I get to go there free.) Any advice? Help?</p>
<p>I’m still just ending my senior year of high school, so maybe I’m not the most informed on this kind of thing. But I think you should reason with your parents and ask them to let you stay on campus the first semester. Then if you’re responsible enough and don’t do anything stupid, maybe they’ll let you keep living in the dorms. You have to prove to your parents that they can trust you to be an adult and not make bad choices.</p>
<p>Well, this is a tough question. Can you tell me your stats and where you live in? Did you apply to any other colleges in your area?</p>
<p>It sounds like your parents would still controlling you if you go to that college, whether you live on campus or not. Every situations are different, but genrally many choose to go out of town or state so they can get away from their parents…if they are not very great. If you got accepted by other colleges out of town/state (and you have a scholarship from the school), then you are good to go.</p>
<p>Your parents are ‘paying’ for your education (whether it is because one of them works there or they are dishing out the dough), and because of this, you are in their debt (in a sense). I don’t see how you can convince them to back off. Just sit down with them, explain to them why you would rather live on campus, and listen to why they don’t want you to. Try and come up with a compromise (Maybe you live on campus, but visit home every friday-sunday, or you live at home but are allowed to hang out with friends in their dorm/on campus whenever you want to). If they stay firm and ultimately refuse to allow you to live on campus or make a compromise, then stay living at home, unless you can afford to go to another school and pay your own way through.</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, it looks like you have given them the excuse to keep you on a tight leash. Of course, this can lead to a vicious cycle of you resenting the overbearing control and trying to bend or break the rules, while they impose even tighter limits, etc…</p>