how can i access a parent view controller's view from a child view controller?

To access the parent View controller you can use self.parentViewController. Once you have it you can access its view simply by using its view property

Note to those using iOS 5.x+

self parentViewController now returns nil. You will now have to use self presentingViewController to achieved the same result. See this blog post for more information and additional work arounds for upgrading your code base: http://omegadelta.net/2011/11/04/oh-my-god-they-killed-parentviewcontroller/

here's what worked for me:

- (void)prepareForSegue:(UIStoryboardSegue *)segue sender:(id)sender {
    NSString * segueName = segue.identifier;
    if ([segueName isEqualToString: @"child-view"]) {
        ChildViewController * childViewController = (ChildViewController *) [segue destinationViewController];
        [self addChildViewController:childViewController];
    }
}