When purchasing or developing a theme, you may come across the following terms: parent and child themes.

Up until now, we’ve only referred to them as core themes or “regular” themes. We’ve talked about how themes could have demo content, but that doesn’t cover child themes and how they interact with parent themes.

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In short, we only refer to parent and child themes when it’s necessary. Therefore, if you purchase a theme and it only requires you to install one theme, it’s neither a parent or child theme.

Parent and child WordPress themes are packaged together, working in tandem to create a unique design. Sometimes premium themes are designed this way, with a parent and a child. The reason for this is to provide additional design options where a parent is the default style and you may receive several child themes to instantly turn the design into something drastically different.

In the parent/child theme combination, a parent theme provides most of the website’s functionality and core settings. This parent theme builds the foundation for that website and often isn’t customized as much as the child theme. In fact, it’s not a good idea to customize a parent theme at all.

Developers like to utilize parent themes because they have the ability to secure the core features in that parent theme but still modify the website’s design by messing with the child theme. It’s also easier to extend upon a child theme since it’s more flexible than the parent theme.

When working with a parent/child theme combo, the parent theme is installed first. You then install and activate the child theme afterward.

A WordPress child theme adds a level of extendability and security to a website and theme because you don’t need to write much code or modify the parent theme’s files at all. Instead, a child theme serves as a more flexible “test dummy” for the design.

When editing a regular theme without a child theme, you’re permanently editing the core files when making customizations. Other options for customizations include working with a visual builder or installing a plugin. Many developers find that it’s easier to install a child theme of the parent, because of the security and flexibility benefits.

A child theme contains at least the following files: a stylesheet and functions.php file.

In fact, most child themes stick to the minimum number of files possible. In order to change the child theme, the functions.php or stylesheet files need editing. You also have the option to add more files to the child theme. For instance, you could override a page template file in the parent theme by adding a new one in the child theme folder. It’s also possible to control much of the design and functionality of the parent theme by adding to the functions and stylesheet files.

We talked about it briefly, but here’s a more detailed explanation of the two child theme benefits:

Extendability – Excessive coding isn’t required on a child theme. The vast majority of the coding is saved and stored in the parent theme. However, the customization options are still available in the child theme. It’s just simpler and less damaging to the core files when you’re working with a child theme.

Updates and security – There’s no reason to change anything in your parent theme if you have a child theme. Everything is done in the child theme, making it much easier to swap out a child theme while maintaining the functionality of the parent theme or to safely update the parent theme since the changes are saved in the child theme. Think of it as a non-destructive set of layers. The more layers of design you have the lesser chance there is to cause damage on the foundational layer.