deleting child records

how do you modify the delete command to automatically delete all child records linked to a record you're trying to delete? i tried just a regular delete and i got an error (id is the primary key in the table program and the foreign key in another table). thanks!

SQL> delete from program where id='abcdef'; delete from program where id='abcdef'

            *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-02292: integrity constraint (METRICS.SYS_C001436) violated - child record found Received on Mon Aug 02 1999 - 14:06:02 CDT