Hello Stasia,
You can use both SMR and Layer Parenting in the same timeline, in fact Layer Parenting is integrated into SMR.
Have a look here:
https://flash-powertools.com/smr-and-layer-parenting/
We advise users to only toggle Layer Parenting on after they have finished animating to get the nice effect of symbols moving along arcs.
Layer Parenting is full of tens of bugs, and has all kinds of issues, which Adobe seem unable to resolve, even though it's been around since Animate 2019.
One such issue is matrix degradation, which manifests itself in different forms in different versions of Animate:
https://flash-powertools.com/known-issues/#layer-parenting-shrinking-drifting