PHP - backtrack through multi-dimensional array to check for recursion issues

I have a PHP array that outlines a parent-child relationships between objects, based on their ID. The array could potentially be infinitely deep, but the only rule is that "you may not add a child ID to a parent, where the child ID is a parent or grandparent (or great-grandparent etc etc) of said parent", in order to rule out recursive loops.

For example:

<?php
// Good relationship: 6 and 4 are children of 7, with 5 a child of 6 and so on
$good_relationship = [
    'id' => 7,
    'children' => [
        [
            'id' => 6,
            'children' => [
                [
                    'id' => 5,
                    'children' => [.. etc etc..]
                ]
            ]
        ],
        [
            'id' => 4,
            'children' => []
        ]
    ]
];



// Badly-formed relationship: 6 is a child of 7, but someone added 7 as a child of 6.
$bad_relationship = [
    'id' => 7,
    'children' => [
        [
            'id' => 6,
            'children' => [
                [
                    'id' => 7,
                    'children' => [ ... 6, then 7 then 6 - feedback loop = bad ... ]
                ]
            ]
        ],
        [
            'id' => 4,
            'children' => []
        ]
    ]
];
?>

I'm trying to write a function that checks for recursion issues when an ID is potentially added as a child to another ID. It would take in an ID ($candidate_id) and tries to add it as a child of another ID ($parent_id), and checks the existing array ($relationship) all the way back up the chain, and returns true if the candidate does not show up as a parent,grandparent,etc of $parent, and false if the candidate addition will cause a recursion issue by being added.

From the above $good_relationship, it would return true is I added ID 3 to ID 5, but false if I added ID 7 to ID 5.

Here's what I have so far, but I know it's way off - it's only checking for immediate grandparent of the candidate ID.

<?php

public function check_candidate($array, $candidate_id, $parent_id, &$grandparent_id = 0)
{
    $reply_array = [];
    foreach($array as $action)
    {

        // If $action['id'] is the same as the grandparent,
        if($grandparent_id == $action['id'])
        {
            return false;
        }

        $grandparent_id = $action['id'];


        if(isset($action['children']) && count($action['children']) >= 1)
        {
            $this->check_candidate($action['children'], $candidate_id, $parent_id, $grandparent_id);
        }
    }


    return true;
}

?>

I've had a look at array_walk_recursive() in this case, but if $good_relationship has more than 1 element to it (which it always will), the callback will not know how 'deep' it is within the function, and it all becomes a bit of a nightmare.

Can anyone help me here?