I created a solution through trial and error, unfortunately having to resort to custom fields. I added a custom field to every child element i wanted to display and used the code:
<?php
$args = array(
'post_type' => 'page',
'meta_key' => 'xxxx',
'meta_value' => 'xxxx'
);
$myPages = new WP_Query($args);
while ($myPages->have_posts()) : $myPages->the_post();
echo "$post->post_title";
echo the_post_thumbnail();
endwhile;
wp_reset_postdata();
?>
This was done by navigating to the specific pages I want to display and creating a custom field, which adds meta data to the page.