How do you dynamically find objects

Question

I'm creating sprites dynamically on a button event.  So for example there is a sprite with a name of "parent_X" where X is a sequential number starting at 1...  So in theory I may have parent_1, parent_2, parent_3, and so on depending on how many times you press this button.
Each sprite has a textField child also with a dynamic name, like textChild_1, textChild_2, textChild_3 and so on.
User can remove a parent and child from the stage... what I do is remove the sprite and then delete it ... so if the parent name is loaded into a string called "textParent" I do:
var target:DisplayObject = getChildByName(textParent);
removeChild(target);
delete getChildByName(textParent);
This seems to work.  Question 1: by deleting the parent are both objects destroyed?  What I mean is that if you simple removeChild(myChild) and later do addChild(myChild) the child is returned to the stage... so if delete the parent and later, I'm assuming the child and parent are gone for good unless they are re-established?  Is this correct thinking?
Moving on, what I need to do is determine what parent(s) and child(s) are still accessible in code after some have been removed / deleted.
Not sure if you understand what I mean, but at some point I need to know what "parent_X" and "child_X" items (objects?) exist? 
I'm trying something like this:
x = 1;
var target:DisplayObject = new DisplayObject();
while(x <= textAreas) {   // textAreas is the counter to assign next parent_X number it is an int
  var target:DisplayObject = getChildByName("parent_" + String(x));
  removeChild(target);
  x++;
This fails, I think if a parent_X was removed (deleted) .. it seems to only remove the first target if more than one were previousy created and then destroyed.
Am I going about this correctly?
Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

1.  target isn't destroyed with that code. it still exists and can be re-added to the display list at any time.  you should assign target to null when you want to ready target for gc.  when target is gc'd the child may or may not be gc'd depending on how it's created.  my guess is the child will not be gc'd.
2.  use an array to store and track your existing parent objects.