To use maven-version-plugin include the following configuration in your POM :
<plugin>
<groupId>com.mysema.maven</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-version-plugin</artifactId>
<version>0.1.0</version>
</plugin>
Now you can update the version of your POM and of all the children via
mvn version:set -Dversion=<NEW VERSION HERE>