Copyright © 1998 by Cynthia Teeters. All rights reserved. 

Claiming is a human behavior that effectively says, "You are a part of me; I am a part of you and we belong together." Claiming is needed to facilitate attachment and continued claiming is needed for attachment to grow and remain strong. Within emotionally healthy families where children enter by birth, claiming by parents and family is both supported and expected from society. For example, after the birth of a baby you will often hear comments such as, "He has my nose and his dad's smile." There are even societal-san ctioned ceremonies such as christenings where family and friends gather to celebrate the new child and help validate the new parents' claiming.

Later as the child grows and shows his strengths and weaknesses, emotionally healthy families accept what the child brings to the family and claims those characteristics as well. It is both a giving and a taking unto one's own. Just as in a healthy marriage where one accepts and claims characteristics that are not necessarily shared between spouses, so do healthy families accept the children's chracteristics that differ from the parents. For example, having the first-ever soccer player in a family of musicians is an opportunity for celebration, not rejection, by a claiming family.

Children who do not experience claiming by parents and family can feel a sense of not belonging and can act out, often in adolescence. Children who do experience claiming, though, will feel a sense of belonging and will reciprocate with their own claiming, an act that is generally very rewarding to parents.

Since claiming is such a feel-good emotion, typically one finds that parents do not do a lot of claiming in a period when a child misbehaves. This tendency to deny misbehavior actually is often presented as a joke between parents. For example, how many of us have heard versions of the following dialogue?

Spouse 1: "Do you know what YOUR son did today?"
Spouse 2: "Oh, when he's good he's YOUR child and when he isn't he's MINE?"

Fortunately, even with typical child behavior most families have ample opportunities for good times when tension between parent and child is low. Children are accepted, validated, claimed and feel that they are loved and they belong.

What about claiming in adoptive families? Since adoption is less accepted and honored by society and since there are no biological ties between parents and children, claiming, attachment and a sense of belonging in an adoptive family can become at risk. For this reason, adoption professionals such as social workers and therapists counsel adoptive families about claiming and encourage them to actively search for ways that they too can claim their children.[1]

Psychologists have divided up adoptive parents' attitudes about adoption and the differences between adoptive and biological parenting into three groups; rejection of differences, acceptance of differences and insistence of differences. When looking at newly adoptive parents of infants they found that parents often reject the differences. It is postulated that such rejection helps the parents in the process of claiming their new baby. Later as the child grows, the group of adoptive parents that were perceived as having the healthiest parenting styles were those who accepted the differences. Families in crisis were those who more typically insisted on the differences.[2]

For most adoptive families, claiming seems to be a natural impulse. These families discover that they can weave claiming i nto the fabric of their lives both through daily living and through special occasions. Choosing to incorporate recipes of dishes from a child's birth region into home cooking, giving family heirlooms to a beloved child and socializing with other members of adoptive family support groups are only a few of a myriad of possible acts of claiming.

Families in crisis, though, are much less likely to be involved in claiming. This is understandable. Children with serious emotional, behavioral and medical issues will not present to parents many opportunities for claiming. They will not be the soccer stars nor even the talented musicians. More typically, they will not have friends, not do well in school and not have any extracurricular interests. They will be violent and rejecting. The few good times that do happen will often be sabotaged by the child. Any act of claiming a parent does do may be perceived by an attachment disordered child, not as an act of love, but as a result of the child's manipulation. Such perceptions on the part of the child can frustrate the parent who then becomes even more reluctant to claim.

Parents who are grappling with the severe challenges of living with children with behavioral disorders also contend with their own emotions of grief and anger. They frequently do not find understanding and validation of their terrible pain and they struggle to make sense of what is happening. Rejection by others who can not understand adds to that pain. Some parents in crisis, as a defense mechanism, insist on the differences in adoption and insist that the adoption has caused their problems. This is especially true if they feel they have been rejected by members of the adoption community. Their claiming, not only of the child but of the institution of adoption, becomes seriously weakened, sometimes to the point of disruption.

For this reason, it is difficult for parents of families in crisis to accept the activities, opinions and feelings of others who have not suffered so a nd who are perceived as having not validated the pain of those who have. Examples of claiming from these groups, such as swapping recipes and going to picnics, because of their normalcy can be especially hurtful.

Even still, the importance of claiming as a needed process for attachment and belonging should not be forgotten, especially by parents who hope to improve the emotional health of the family. Deborah Hage in her discussion of therapeutic parenting not only talks about the importance of shopping for new clothes for a child based on his likes and dislikes but also of the importance of cooking together.[3] In my opinion, these are her examples of acts of claiming.

Joining or remaining with an adoptive support group during the arduous time that a family is in crisis may be quite difficult but just as Deborah Hage underscores to therapeutic parents the importance of claiming, so should parents in crisis remember its healing properties. As a family begins to recover and as the opportuni ties for normalcy return, one should look to claiming as a way to foster attachment and give everyone in the family a sense of belonging.