Having a teenager with learning disabilities in a family entails a reorganization of everyday life. From the ethnologist’s viewpoint, whose investigation creates some disturbances in the family, this situation may be a chance to tackle kinship from another perspective. The ways the research was received, regarded or even used by the participants can be analysed as different ways of reacting, which also correspond to patterns of organization. Drawing on 42 family case studies, the research presents four different modes of accepting it: it can be brought down to the viewpoint of a spokesperson (protection); it can be used as an opportunity to attempt to mobilize the family circle (confrontation); it can be geared towards observing a form of family solidarity (selection); or it can be received with docility (compliance).