访谈录 2009-12-24&12-26 对不起这养子我们受不了了

A couple claim their adopted son has turned their home into a house of horrors. They say they love the boy, but he's become too much to handle. And now they wanna give him back and have the state return him to foster care. But the law says they can't. Ryan Owens has the story.

What you have for dinner?

Melissa Wescott sounds like any other mom, worried about her little boy.

How are you doing with your maths?

But her 11-year-old son isn't at camp or at grandma's house. He is locked up in a psychiatric hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In fact, he hasn’t been back in his bedroom in nearly a year. That's about to change.

The boy is scheduled to be released next month. Doctors say he is not a danger to himself or anyone else. Don't tell that to Melissa and her husband Tony.

He tried to burn our home down with a note saying: "I'm sorry, you had to die." He has manipulated, and just raged. We can't handle him.

The Wescotts who couldn't have a child of their own adopted the boy two years ago. He was 9. They were so excited to have a son, even kept a scrapbook: the Welcome to the Family Party, birthdays, learning to mow 1 the grass with dad. But there are other pictures that didn't make the scrapbook. The Wescotts say they found these butcher knives under his mattress 2, lighters 3 hidden in the bed room.

Are you going to allow this child back into your home?

We have no choice, we face a felony if we don't.

And how afraid are you of having him back.

Tony won't sleep at night, I won't. I will stay awake.

Fearful of what might happen next. The Wescotts are fighting to return the child they promised to take care of.

It is not like we’re trying to return an itchy sweater.

The bottom line is, he needs help, he needs more help.

The state of Oklahoma says adoptive parents should be treated no different than birth parents.

A parent is a parent. I don't think there should be exceptions made for a birth parent nor for an adoptive parent.

Karen Poteet runs the state's post-adoption 4 program. She says all parents are warned the children they are adopting were abused or neglected, and that symptoms of that abuse may manifest themselves years later. She knows that all too well. Potteet and her husband adopted two sisters in 2001.

My children were abused from the moment of conception because their birth mother chose to drink during the entire pregnancy 5. That's no fault to my children.

She says the last thing adopted children need is to be rejected by another family. Fortunately, it's rare. There are 11 thousand children in Oklahoma's adoption system. This year, only 13 adoptions 6 have been dissolved. The process is similar to a divorce, expensive and often lengthy 7. The Wescotts can't afford it.

You just can't go to any therapist.

Members of this support group for adoptive parents say state law should make exceptions for the most violent children.

And if a family can show that they have exhausted 8 every resource, every opportunity, everything they could do to save their families and this is what they're left with, then they should have this as an option. No one should be held hostage in their own homes.

But these are children that have to have someone stand up and advocate for them. And if we don't do it, who is gonna do it?

The Wescotts say they're out of options, their son is coming home January 12th.

Do you love this little boy?

Yes.

After all of this?

Yes.

And you believe loving him now means what?

Letting him go.

Love you.

If they do, they could be locked up for child abandonment.

Bye.

And the little boy will be locked out of yet another family.

For "Good Morning America", Ryan Owens, ABC News, Tulsa Oklahoma.

Man, you know, Robin 9, is that old old saying--hard cases make bad law. And I think this is perfect example. I can't help but feel for the Wescotts. But boy, I just don't want Oklahoma to change their law--an adoptive parent should be just like a biological parent.

A parent is a parent. And you could feel that the Wescotts, they’re legitimate 10 in being concerned given what they found under their son's bed. But what she said it’s like giving, it is not like giving back a woolly sweater. In kind of a way that's how they're treating it. I just can’t imagine a parent, you know, the biological parent or families that have this kind of issues, but you don’t give the child back.

The disclosure problem is a tough one. If they didn't know about these problems ahead of time that does raise a very very difficult question.

And please let us know, go to our website, our Shout Out (GMA Shout Out Board). Well, we’d love to know where you fall along this, in this issue.

It would be great to hear.