General :: Create Link To Executable In Parent Directory

Create the following directories: parent/child
Navigate to child and create a file named child (this is an executable file in my case, not sure if that makes a difference). I need to create two "link to executable" links in the parent.

I had assumed that this would work:
ln -sf ./child ../child1
ln -sf ./child ../child2

But that creates a "link to folder" (./child) in the parent directory. If I change it to:
ln -sf -t.. ./child child1
ln -sf -t.. ./child child2
I get an error, "ln: '../child': cannot overwrite directory".

If I do it from the parent directory (which I cannot do, this is part of a Makefile recipe):
ln -sf ./child/child ./child1
ln -sf ./child/child ./child2

It works. Note that I cannot alter the names of any directories or files. How do I create the links when the current directory is the child?