creating a count within a query

[alktrigger]

I'm trying to build a query that will:
a.) search within a certain date range
b.) count the amount of records underneath each parent record
c.) display each of the summarized parent records displaying only a sum of its children.

part a: is the part I dont have a problem with.
part b + c: I cannot think of a way to do this without creating an individual query for each parent catagory and doing a dcount, then combining everything afterwards (obviously not the best method since the number of parent records can change over time

What would be the best/simplist way to go about this?

 

[Mr. B]

If you can create your query that returns the results you want or need for all of the parent records, then when you use that query in a report, you can have the report to present the data in the grouping and sort order you need.

Try letting the report do a lot of the sliceing and diceing.