AIBU to refuse a Year 9 staying up for the 1am match?

[BlackTulipss]

Is this unreasonable?
Apparently "every other mum" is letting their school year 9 kid watch the 1am match tonight and phone in sick to school tomorrow morning then go in at lunch.
I've said no to staying up to watch it. Starts at 1am, it will go on till 3:30am, or later if extra time!
DS has to get up at 6:30 for school.
DH says let him, keeps going on about once every 4 years experience, it's only 1 night, etc. And he says it will be the final England match - they'll be knocked out by Mexico tonight so there will be no other England games to watch after tonight.
DS badly needs his sleep and at 14 he still needs a solid 11 hours to function.
Is anyone else letting their DC watch it live tonight?
AIBU?

At first I thought you meant a nine year old
but year nine teenager? Yes that’s mean and I would let them if that’s what they wanted to do

DH ... says it will be the final England match - they'll be knocked out by Mexico tonight so there will be no other England games to watch after tonight.

LTB!

Same here! I used to order the fake ID from adverts at the back of magazines (just 17?). We all used to do it.

I do remember my mum used to come and pick me up from town in the early hours though. It’s all seems madness now.

Let him watch it!! So many life lessons in letting him stay up rather than rigidly stick to rules for no reason. What do you think he will remember as an adult another monotanous Monday at school (when tbh nothing happens towards end of Term anyway) or his parents teaching him about flexibility???? This should not even be a question.

Having read your updates, I’d prefer he gets up at 4 and watches it on catchup then pretend to his friends that he watched it live
Or
He gets up half an hour earlier and watches the highlights before school so he can chat about the football.

I wouldn’t let him skip tomorrow morning because it sets a precedent and his ND brain will try this for other matches like the final and in future years. My preference would be for solution 2 as it’s only Monday and I don’t want to suffer the effects of his sleep deprivation. By 6 there will be videos and commentators who can summarise the match and he can use that if he needs to know what to say at school.

It's usually a wise parenting approach to ignore the line 'but everyone else's parents are letting them' but on this occasion, an awful lot of them are, and with children much younger than your DS. I am good friends with a family whose 10 yo will go to bed a little earlier than usual in the evening, be woken by his dad at 00.45, then watch the match and go back to bed for a couple of hours before getting up for school at normal time. These are good parents who are usually very strict over sleep.

I would personally let him do it on a similar schedule to the one above, going in to school at normal time. If DH feels strongly that he should be allowed then he can be the one to set an alarm and wake him.

Just manage DS's expectations that they are very unlikely to win.

I have zero interest in football. Neither do my DC. But if they had been at that age, I would have allowed this as a one off. One of my children hasn’t been in school for two years due to illness. It certainly puts missing the odd day into perspective.

Watch the match on replay at 7:10am tomorrow morning?

It sounds like he won’t manage to stay awake anyway.

I’d let him, but he gets up on time and goes the school regardless.

He might love it and be fine tomorrow

He might be tired and grumpy and get into trouble at school, lesson learnt

He might be a bugger to get up in the morning and try and not go in, fine, you will know not to treat him so maturely next time if he can’t keep to his word

1978 World Cup Final Argentina v Netherlands. It was on, IIRC, 7pm kick off, my bedtime was 8pm, I was allowed to watch the first half, then sent to get ready for bed. I was fuming. The result was I couldn't sleep anyway. I then told a telling off for not going to sleep. I was awake all night.
It was 2 foreign teams, not England.
It was early in comparison.
I was 11.
I still remember it all these years later.
Tell him, he can watch but he's going to bed early and set alarm, watch match, then bed again and going to school normal time and you won't tolerate any tired grumpiness! He will survive on one bad night sleep.

I’d have let mine!

Poor kid. A mother with a whole tree up her ass.

Yep I would let him, go to be early get some sleep, set alarm for 12.50, watch and match, back to bed. Up for school. Always let my DS up late to watch Masters etc, always when to school the next day.

You’re clearly not a football fan. Every chance this is as far as England go, or for likes of OPs son, could be their year and he’ll miss them going through to quarters in one of greatest stadiums 🏟️ in football.

Year 9, so 14yrs old not 4? Let him fgs it's all a bit of fun! Surely he'll just do it secretly anyway?

Year 9! Of course he stays up - he’s not a baby and can cope with the being a bit tired. You need to let go a bit, OP.

YABU. He’ll cope for one day. It’s the end of term anyway, they’re not really working anymore

My yr 4 and 6 are watching...they will go to bed first though.

As an irrelevant aside, I hate the term “core memory”.

Ok - something they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. Is that better?

People literally can’t think for themselves nowadays. Why do you need help making this decision/ need validation for it?

Hard to believe this is even real. And I don’t like football but I do parent teenagers and young adults.
unclench indeed.

Just chill woman - he is 14 not 4，let him deal with the situation as he wants because he needs to learn how to deal with being tired but still having to get on with his day.

Oh, I get that it's a one off in terms of a late night for this tournament. The shared experience with their peers and family (although not in OP's case, as she's said neither her nor DH will stay up) I also understand.

But I still don't think it's a bad point to make that this isn't going to be the last ever WC, it's not the final, it's not so rare that we get this far and it really isn't the seminal moment people are making it out to be. Yes, it's an exciting thing for children to do, but I suspect for some it's the being allowed to be up at that time that will have more appeal than the actual event, not to mention, as OP said, some children being told they can skive off for it in the morning.

I genuinely think parents make more of a big deal out of this than the kids do, to be honest, and if it wasn't being hyped up so much, most kids wouldn't expect to be watching it at that time.

As I said, I think it should be OP's son's choice at 14 to watch it, with the caveat that he still has to get up and got to school at the normal time. But if he doesn't watch it, he won't be the only one and it isn't like he's missed history in the making or anything. And if he does remember for a while that his mum didn't let him watch it, but his dad said he could, so what? I'm sure we all had those times, things we thought were so important, and our parents didn't agree but the naysayer won. I know I have. Why is this any more of a big deal than the concert dad agreed to but mum said no to, or the trip away with a friend, or whatever?

In our house the rule is my husband and I can’t go against what the other said. So if he asked you first and it was a no, that’s the end of that. If he asked his dad and his dad said yes, that’s the end of the conversation too. So it would be simple for us.

I would have let my kids watch the Scotland matches if they were in any way interested in football. Sadly they aren’t so I watched alone. I would let them watch tonight but they’d be at school tomorrow.