Hello! Thanks for writing. The psproue of this site is to help families integrate scouting with their homeschool activities. There are really three ways to be involved in scouts: 1-Join a typical scout troop, usually consisting of public and/or private school students. 2-Join a scout troop that consists of primarily homeschool students. 3-Become a lone scout. Had we known about the loan scout program, it's likely we'd have chosen that option. In retrospect, we're grateful that we stayed with the troop, but there are some things to consider. We probably had the worst-case scenario when it came to the troop. It was a very secular troop in a small community, with only one school. All the other boys went to school together, and the scoutmaster was a teacher at the school. Our homeschooled son was constantly left out of the loop. It was almost as though he was a lone scout within the troop. Our advice when choosing a troop made up of traditionally-schooled kids is to choose one where the scouts attend different schools. That will help your sons fit in better, and at least have a chance at being elected to leadership positions.Here's the reason we're glad we stuck with the troop. We wanted our son to associate primarily with people who held the same beliefs as we did, but did not want to shelter him so much that he didn't develop the skills to function in the real world. The scout troop provided just the right amount of interaction with others, within the confines of the scout law, etc. While it was a very secular troop, there were more limits than in other secular groups. Your boys would probably find an opportunity to influence other scouts in the troop. Our experience is only with Boy Scouts, though, and not Cub Scouts. In the end, our son became senior patrol leader of the troop, and was able to counteract some of the previous secular influence. The decision as to which type of scouting experience is best would depend largely on the personality and maturity of the scout. As far as your concern about scouting taking too much time away from family time, in most cases it will simply enrich your family and homeschool time. Depending on where you live, you may be able to find homeschool troops that combine their activities with scouting programs for various ages, as well as girls. Even if you can't find such an arrangement, scouting will complement your homeschool day. Many of the merit badges can easily be incorporated into homeschool courses. We even developed courses based on some of the science merit badges. That actually saves a lot of time, and provides motivation for many boys to complete their assignments. In the summer, we took advantage of as many scout camps as possible, since that provided supervised social interaction, and opportunities to earn merit badges (which also counted as school work). We didn't realize, at first, that a scout can attend any camp, even without the rest of the troop. Once we realized that, we began planning our vacations around scout opportunities in other parts of the country. Our son's most rewarding activities were those done with troops other than his own.Looking back over the high school years, I can't even imagine homeschool without scouting. It was scouting that was largely responsible for our son's leadership development. I hope other families will also respond to your comment, as every experience is different.