Recognised bags children nicked (7)
I believe the answer is:
notched
'nicked' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'recognised bags children' is the wordplay.
'recognised' becomes 'noted' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'bags' means one lot of letters goes inside another (bag can mean secures or steals).
'children' becomes 'ch' (genealogical abbreviation).
'noted' enclosing 'ch' is 'NOTCHED'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for notched that I've seen before include "Nicked" , "Serrated" , "Indented, incised" , "Carved with a nick" , "Made incisions in (something)" .)