mdi application

Question

I am having trouble communicating with my mdiParent from a child form. I am trying enable some menu items on the mdi parent when a user logs in successfully in frmLogin. I am able to pass info to setPermissions(bool enabled) and I step through the code and it shows that each menu item's enabled property is changed to true but when I go up to the menu again they are still not enabled. what should i do? this code is in the parent: public void setPermissions(bool access) { this.mnuLogon.Enabled = !access; this.mnuLogout.Enabled = access; this.mnuSpending.Enabled = access; this.mnuCurrent.Enabled = access; this.mnuTransactions.Enabled = access; this.mnuDebt.Enabled = access; } this is the code in the child: private void cmdOK_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e) { int login = data.login(txtLogin.Text.ToString(), txtPassword.Text.ToString()); switch(login) { case 0: MessageBox.Show("Invalid Login Name or Password"); txtLogin.Focus(); break; case 1: frm.setPermissions(true); this.Hide(); break; case 2: frm.setPermissions(true); this.Hide(); break; default: MessageBox.Show("Invalid Login Name or Password"); txtLogin.Focus(); break; } } am i missing something obvious? I am fairly new to C#. Thanks, Pete