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Those child users don't then have their own child users (because it's cyclic) so do you have to choose one option of the two, both with a drawback?

I was thinking you could replace or supplement the real user IDs with their indices in the array of returned users.

I am sorry, but if possible, could you elaborate @chrisseaton? (preferably with a bit more punctuation :D)

With more punctuation? What's that supposed to mean? I've written two short sentences. It's not some wall of text.

So, is a hypothetical scenario, an employee that is their own supervisor?

Yes, but I'm not sure if you're implying that it's a nonsensical situation with that example. Lots of real-world graphs have genuine cycles.

For a good example of unexpected cycles you can see this classic question on genealogy software: