Bonnie

I have a feeling that I misunderstood you (surprise!)

I put this code below in the activated event handler of the menu form.

 // Show the Process Menu Dropdowns
         processToolStripMenuItem.ShowDropDown();

I think you might have meant that I should put in the activated event of the MDIChild form.

I don't know how to call a method of a toolstripmenu item object in the partent form

Could you show me the code you used?

Thanks