My DD's soul is being crushed in traditional public school, but this is based entirely on the district and school administrations' idiotic biases and how they're aggressively preventing DD's placement in an appropriate learning environment. If she weren't gifted, she'd be just fine.
Her homework load is pretty light. She's in GT class half the day, and they tend to go from one project to another, with a week or two deadline which allows us to help DD budget time appropriately, without having a negative impact on her sleep or her extracurriculars. The rest of the day she's in a normal 1st grade class, and she gets most of that homework done on class time.
She's on a soccer team full of kids from a private, Catholic school. Those first graders are doing an hour of homework a night, often stretching out beyond that because they're burned out. Between the homework, soccer, and ordinary daily activities (eating, bathing, etc.), they're not getting enough sleep every night.
It also helps that DD's school day starts nearly two hours later than the private school. That makes a huge difference. It means we're not trying to send her to bed while it's still daylight to ensure she gets enough sleep. It also means she gets some Daddy time after dinner.
