How to find a control in a parent control/panel?

I have a scenario similar to the following:

<%@ Control language="vb" Inherits="ViewControl" AutoEventWireup="false" Explicit="True" Codebehind="ViewControl.ascx.vb" %>
<%@ Register TagPrefix="lcs" TagName="PreferencesPage" Src="EditGradebook.ascx" %>
<%@ Register TagPrefix="lcs" TagName="ClassAttendancePage" Src="ClassAttendancePage.ascx" %>

<table>
  <tr align="left">
    <td>
    <asp:panel id="pnlPreferencesPage" Visible="False" runat="server">
          <lcs:PreferencesPage id="ctlPreferencesPage" runat="server"></lcs:PreferencesPage>
    </asp:panel>
    <asp:panel id="pnlClassAttendancePage" Visible="False" runat="server">
          <lcs:ClassAttendancePage id="ctlClassAttendancePage" runat="server"></lcs:ClassAttendancePage>
    </asp:panel>
    </td>
   </tr>
  <tr align="left">
    <td>
    <div class="container">
      <asp:Panel ID="pnlMessageBox" runat="server">
        <p><asp:Literal ID="ltlMessage" runat="server"></asp:Literal></p>
    </asp:Panel>
    </div>    
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>

What I need to be able to do is to access the ltlMessage control, from inside the code-behind page of any of the child panel controls (like pnlClassAttendancePage as in pnlClassAttendancePage.ParentControl.ltlMessage which of course doesn't work).

Is there a way to accomplish this?  I assume there is, but I am not worthy.  There is nothing in the intellisense when in the code-behind page of a child panel that references the parent.  I don't think the 'Parent' does it, but if it does, I haven't been able to get that to work.  

Could someone show me an example using the above layout to allow me  to access the pnlMessageBox from inside a pnlClassAttendancePage?

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