Except they aren't making the best decisions most of the time, and by the time the kid can study what they want easily on their own (think things like money for buying materials), they're stuffed with bullshit busywork from their normal classes that are intellectually boring and take forever to do, until they get to college (hopefully).

Or at least that's what it was like for me. One of the things I loved to do was to code, and well, that sort of went out the window for the two years I was in high school because I'd be dead tired and in need of sleep every single night after the requisite extracurriculars and homework. My parents wouldn't let me drive to school in the morning because I'd get only a couple of hours of sleep a night sometimes and they didn't want me to fall asleep behind the wheel.

Even on weekends I didn't have time because I had to study for the classes I hated and do lame group projects where at least one member didn't do their fair share of work.