Ambiguity in Software Serial
I notice that your code only mentions "child1", but the output you've displayed mentions "child 2". I assume that means you're using more than one instance of SoftwareSerial.

It's important to note that only one instance can receive data at any given time. You need to call listen() on an instance to enable it, which will prevent any other instance from receiving data. (Anything which would have been received by another instance will be discarded.)

See the documentation here: http://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/SoftwareSerialListen