Fortnite Event
Duncan came to us the other day with an interesting request: he wanted an alarm clock. OK, why?
Because it seems that he’s learned that all these amazing events on FortNite happen while he’s asleep, they happen around 6am, and he’d like to get up early for the next one that’s on Sunday morning. OK, that’s not completely unreasonable (at least, it’s better than his friend, who would be staying up until 4am for the event), so Sabriena agreed to let him use hers for the purpose, then set off to research what the fuck he’s talking about.
After some checking, it looks like most of them started around 6pm Eastern US time, which with timezones being what they are Duncan just flipped the PM/AM and called it close enough. This one was actually starting at 4am AEST, which just seemed way too early. After some deliberation - Sabriena dissenting - we agreed to allow it: it’s not that unreasonable of a request, it’s something he’s super into, it’s time-sensitive, and most importantly deciding the time he gets up is part of growing into a functioning adult (and a whole lot less potential for damage than deciding his own bedtime). There were some caveats attached: to avoid ruining his sleep for school on Monday he agreed to go to bed early-ish on both nights of the weekend, and if he slept through the alarm and either of us had to get out of bed to turn it off, he’d be grounded.
My money was on him waking to the alarm, turning it off, then sleeping through the event. Sabriena was firmly betting on her losing sleep somehow (probably even money, if we’re being honest). Unfortunately I neglected two very important details: 1) the stupid screen-time limits on his iPad, which he uses to Discord with his friend who would also be doing the same thing and 2) the excited noises a kid makes when gaming, both of which meant we were all up at 4am. This double-sucked for me as I was reckless in my self control and stayed up until midnight, but that one’s on me.
But in my mind, the end result was worth it. He got some autonomy and made some decisions that help him grow as an individual. He also worked out that it really wasn’t worth all the trouble, and while it was cool he could have just got caught up with it watching a replay on YouTube after a solid night’s sleep… he didn’t actually gain anything by seeing it live, so I can’t imagine he’ll be in any hurry to repeat the experience.
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