Oklahoma Couple Want to Return Troubled Adopted Son to State

[proud2BlibKansan]

Melissa and Tony Wescott are afraid of their son. They're so afraid of the boy they adopted that they're trying to have Oklahoma law changed so that they can return him to the state's care.

A family claims its adopted son is too much for them to handle.

"He tried to burn our home down. The note said, 'I'm sorry you had to die,'" Melissa Wescott told "Good Morning America."

She said she and her husband have found butcher knives under his mattress and lighters hidden in his bedroom.

The Wescotts' 11-year-old son has been locked up in a psychiatric hospital in Tulsa, Okla., for nearly a year. But now doctors say he's not a danger to himself or anyone else, and the boy is scheduled to be released from the hospital next month.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/tony-melissa-wescott-oklahoma-return-adopted-son/story?id=9387389&page=1

[MadMaddie]

1. He is not a danger that is until he stops taking his meds

What do we do with kids and adults that are clearly troubled and a danger to others?

[snagglepuss]

3. Good question. Here I think the state was at fault for mistating the

boy's emotional state at the time of adoption. What's going to happen if the state refuses to accept the child back is that fewer people will want to adopt any child.

[Frances]

2. It is my understanding that parents can make their children

wards of the state in CA. Is that correct?

[FreakinDJ]

5. Very difficult to do that unless CPS says so

You have to prove the child is a danger to himself or others

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. This family is in OK not CA

[FreakinDJ]

4. Sadly it happens all too often

In some cases they even sue the adoption agency

[TicketyBoo]

7. I think that

anyone who fears his/her child cannot be a fit parent for that child.

What are the provisions for relinquishing custody?

I don't think it matters so much that the child was adopted. This could happen with a natural-born child, too, although perhaps not as frequently.

[Nikki Stone1]

8. That's an interesting point.

.

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. OK law forbids giving him back

But I am thinking he may be better off away from the family that doesn't want him.

[marshall]

10. They should be looking for an appropriate boarding school if they can't handle him

There are such places, and they have taken the responsibility for this child. The state may have lapsed in its role as fully informing them, but I suspsect they were also so anxious to have a child that they did not pursue their own research. I am sure they could have had the child diagnosed as thoroughly as they wanted.

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. I don't know about OK but here in KS it's incredibly difficult to get a child into one of those

facilities. Plus they just had their budget cut pretty drastically.

[marshall]

12. They ought to at least be able to get counseling for themselves

Their lives are not going to be the storybook they had in mind. The same thing happens to parents who birth their children. They have to organize their lives around the child. Don't have knives avaliable. Make sure he's on his medication. Organize everything around a schedule but be flexible.