Custom Wordpress function which uses a nav walker to display a list of child pages from a common parent, which can be called from either the parent page (displays children) or any of the child pages (displays siblings). Detailed instructions available on my blog post here: http://christianvarga.com/how-to-get-submenu-items-from-a-wordpress-menu-…

direct_parent.php

<?php
wp_nav_menu( array(
  'menu'          => 'Menu Name',
  'sub_menu'      => true,
  'direct_parent' => true
) );

functions.php

<?php

// add hook
add_filter( 'wp_nav_menu_objects', 'my_wp_nav_menu_objects_sub_menu', 10, 2 );

// filter_hook function to react on sub_menu flag
function my_wp_nav_menu_objects_sub_menu( $sorted_menu_items, $args ) {
  if ( isset( $args->sub_menu ) ) {
    $root_id = 0;
    
    // find the current menu item
    foreach ( $sorted_menu_items as $menu_item ) {
      if ( $menu_item->current ) {
        // set the root id based on whether the current menu item has a parent or not
        $root_id = ( $menu_item->menu_item_parent ) ? $menu_item->menu_item_parent : $menu_item->ID;
        break;
      }
    }
    
    // find the top level parent
    if ( ! isset( $args->direct_parent ) ) {
      $prev_root_id = $root_id;
      while ( $prev_root_id != 0 ) {
        foreach ( $sorted_menu_items as $menu_item ) {
          if ( $menu_item->ID == $prev_root_id ) {
            $prev_root_id = $menu_item->menu_item_parent;
            // don't set the root_id to 0 if we've reached the top of the menu
            if ( $prev_root_id != 0 ) $root_id = $menu_item->menu_item_parent;
            break;
          } 
        }
      }
    }

    $menu_item_parents = array();
    foreach ( $sorted_menu_items as $key => $item ) {
      // init menu_item_parents
      if ( $item->ID == $root_id ) $menu_item_parents[] = $item->ID;

      if ( in_array( $item->menu_item_parent, $menu_item_parents ) ) {
        // part of sub-tree: keep!
        $menu_item_parents[] = $item->ID;
      } else if ( ! ( isset( $args->show_parent ) && in_array( $item->ID, $menu_item_parents ) ) ) {
        // not part of sub-tree: away with it!
        unset( $sorted_menu_items[$key] );
      }
    }
    
    return $sorted_menu_items;
  } else {
    return $sorted_menu_items;
  }
}

page.php

<?php

wp_nav_menu( array(
  'menu'     => 'Menu Name',
  'sub_menu' => true
) );

page2.php

<?php

$menu_to_count =  wp_nav_menu( array(
  'menu'     => 'Menu Name',
  'sub_menu' => true,
  'echo'     => false
) );

$menu_items = substr_count( $menu_to_count, 'class="menu-item ' );

if ( $menu_items != 0 ) echo $menu_to_count;

show_parent.php

<?php
wp_nav_menu( array(
  'menu'        => 'Menu Name',
  'sub_menu'    => true,
  'show_parent' => true
) );

I was wondering if it is possible to only display the child menu of the parent of that child. ie., level 1 leaders to leve2, level3, and level4 and that is all I see but if I click on level 2 and can now see level2a, 2b, and 2c. Similar to how an accordion works but not necessarily like in AJAX but more traditionally. I just don't want to have a deep side bar menu due to setting the depth to 3. If this is possible please leave a comment below. Thank you.

Great script! I would like to display the current menu ancestor as a title above the menu list. How can I do this? Currently I display the page parent as a title, but in some cases this is incorrect since page structure != menu structure.

@AdmireNL I'd probably use the show_parent => true flag, then apply appropriate styling to the first element. This only works if you want the title to appear directly above the menu; if you want it somewhere else you can extract the code that sets the $root_id variable into another function to get the root level menu item.