Lots of feedback here....basically, they're supposed to get 1.5 hrs HW a night every night and more at w/es. However, many HWs aren't for the next day but for a few days later or the next week. This means they have to organise their time to prioritise subjects. Also, some HWs will take, individually, a lot lot longer than 1.5 hrs and some will take less - say 25 mins.
Most nights, he'll come home with another 3 + subjects, additional to those accrused the night before. He'll tend to do the HW that's for the next day and leave some - though not all - of those for a few days time.
However, all this means that at the w/e, he may have accrued around 6 to 7 subjects, despite working hard every evening all week to keep on top of as much as possible. That then means that on and off across the enitre w/e he's doing HW. He may take a break to do computing but the HW is still there hanging over him and often won't leave enough time to do a few hours of a major activity.
He feels too tired anyway to want to go out really and just wants to slump in front of his PC (he does CGI stuff for fun or browses YouTube etc).
He isn't the best with organisational skills - nor the worst. I constantly encourage him to 'get it over and done with so you can then relax fully' - but he often won't as he says he's too tired and so it accrues. He quite often gets migraines when he's tired and then loses a whole evening HW anyway, meaning there's even more the next night to do.
If it's HW he enjoys, he'll spend a lot longer than they're supposed lnike the HW, he'll be slapdash and messy and do it as quickly as possible. I find lots of the HW is a waste of his time and the worst thing of all is that some teachers just never ever mark HW - SO annoying. So he feels like what's the point in doing it then?
Then there's the fact that whilst he's holding his own in the school and pretty good at one or two subjects, he's by no means bright enough to coast through certain subjects, especially Maths, which isn't his thing but is a v v strong subject at his school and there are lots of gifted mathematicians there. I expect they spend hardly any time compared to DS on their Maths or science HWs.
It's difficult not to complete HW if you go over the expected time allotted to it. It's kind of not in the culture and v unusual for a parent or student to say - I didn't finish this exercise as it took me longer than 1.5 hrs. No one wants to admit that kind of thing and anyway, as you often get several days to complete one subject, each individual teacher can say - but you had 7 days to do it. How can you not have completed it?
As far as family time goes, there seems less and less of this as I spend any time between paid work and needs of the DCs, simply catching up with the top priority domestic tasks. We'll occasionally watch a family movie on Sunday afternoon but this doesn't always work because of the needs of my other DC. I seem to race from one task to the next myself, most of my waking hours and am not exactly a good example of a 'balanced adult life'!
He does some activities at school, at lunchtimes but no longer anything after school - but one activity that happens v occasionally at w/es that's school related. However, on those w/es, he often wishes he wasn't doing it as he then loses a full day of the w/e and so has to cram all HW into oneday and it's quite sad that he contemplates dropping that one too (like so many others) just to get a bit of w/e 'downtime'.