You can put the Child Pages Site Map anywhere you like but you have to modify the skin to do so.
For instance, most skins have the following:
<asp:Panel id="divCenter" runat="server" visible="True" cssclass="center-rightandleftmargins" SkinID="pnlPlain">
<portal:Breadcrumbs id="Breadcrumbs" runat="server"></portal:Breadcrumbs>
<portal:ChildPageMenu id="ChildPageMenu" runat="server" CssClass="txtnormal"></portal:ChildPageMenu>
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="mainContent" runat="server"></asp:ContentPlaceHolder>
</asp:Panel>
You would want to change that to:
<asp:Panel runat="server" visible="True" cssclass="center-rightandleftmargins" SkinID="pnlPlain">
<portal:Breadcrumbs runat="server"></portal:Breadcrumbs>
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder runat="server"></asp:ContentPlaceHolder>
<portal:ChildPageMenu runat="server" CssClass="txtnormal"></portal:ChildPageMenu>
</asp:Panel>
HTH,
Joe D.