list with grouping loses space between records

hi,
I'm new to reporting services and have had a play with it but wonder if
I can get a quick answer here.
I have a dataset and want to show some details of the parent record
with some details of the child.
I have used a table and that is all ok except for the fact that on the
child record I have table headings (which I have put into the parent
grouping row). Now this row expands because of the data in the parent
record which means that the child record doesn't start until after the
parent record. I want the child record to show as a table with its
headers in line with the parent record i.e. the table headers will be
independent of the parent record - not growing.
So I decided to try and use a list. This works as I want except now, I
am not sure how to get a gap between the records. When there are no
child records I get a nice gap but if there are, say 3 child records,
then the gap between the last child record and the next parent record
is virtually non-existent. I have tried putting empty rectangles in and
even an empty textbox with a "CanShrink=False" to try and force a
certain gap between parent records but there's probably something
really basic I'm missing.
Thanks for any help
Philactually the list doesn't work as i want because each of the cells
grows independently of each other so the borders don't align - is there
a way round this?