his4ever - I'm glad the chat is helping. It's amazing how much you can figure out just by "saying" it to someone else, huh?
I think you've got the right idea by focusing on the lights. A 100 watt equivalent CFL is only about 25 watts, and each of my strip lights holds two daylight 40 watt fluorescents. I have no idea what the tungsten equivalent is, but they put out a lot of light.
I don't think they would be too bright for kids, just think about buying some of that diffusion material from the hardware store that would usually be used to cover the lights. That way you can spread it out a little. I oriented them vertically in my thread, but I have also seen them used oriented in a horizontal arrangement, one high and one low with the camera shooting through the middle. That more closely approximates a beauty light setup and might give better portrait results.
You could also consider getting bigger bulbs for you 60 watt CFLs and making a homemade snoot for one of them to act as a hairlight. The closer you can get the lights to your subjects while keeping them off frame, the shorter your exposure so you'll have more room to play.
Watch the video
here to see how David Greene uses the strip lights for portraiture.
Post some shots for us if you can, I'd love to see how these turn out!