Is there a way to unpublish both a parent node and it's children?

I was trying to use node relativity to accomplish this, but it doesn't quite work the way I had hoped. So I am looking for a way to automate changing the published state of the parent node and all it's children. basically using the parent node as a "container" and the child nodes as it's filler. So when the container changes it's status so does everything inside. The only thing I need contorl over is the fact that if an author changes the container all of the children that he created would be changed and not simply every and all children.

I wasn't sure if taxonomy had something or maybe another module. Grr there are so many ways to do things that I am really overwhelmed. I Would appreciate any help on this.