What is a WordPress Child Theme and Do You Need It?

No matter how great the premium WordPress theme you use, there will probably come a time when you’ll want to customize things a little here and there. Similarly, the theme developer will release an update, and naturally, you’ll want to update your theme to make sure you get the most out of the improvements that come with the update. It’s good to have a child theme on hand in both of these scenarios..

Which brings us to the question that plagues many WordPress users: “What exactly is a child theme, how does it work, and (most importantly) do I really need a theme?”

What is a WordPress Child Theme?

Because they contain the word “child”, many WordPress users mistakenly think that child themes are a stripped down version of the basic, “regular” theme, and as a result, they often reject the idea of ​​using one.

But a child theme is not what it seems. aspect WordPress Theme Handbook A child theme inherits the look and feel and all functionality of the parent theme, but can be used to make changes to any part of the theme. This way, the customizations are kept separate from the parent theme’s files. Using a child theme allows you to upgrade the parent theme without affecting the customizations you make on your site.”

This means that a child theme is not a standalone theme, but merely a theme linked to another theme – the parent theme. Just like a child gets his eyes and hair color from his parents, the child theme also inherits the functionality and style of the parent theme.

The purpose of a child theme is to allow you to make changes and modifications to it instead of the parent theme. without the risk of breaking something or losing some original functions and settings. We will explain this in more detail shortly.

Child Theme and Parent Theme

As we said above, a child theme has the same features and functions as the parent theme. It also looks like the main theme inheriting all of its stylization.

It is worth noting that a child theme cannot run on its owna parent theme can work very well on its own.

You can think of a child theme like this: an additional layer on top of the main theme. You can use this layer to change things up, add custom functionality, and adjust the look and feel of the parent theme. In short, it’s there to let you do any kind of customization without worrying about ruining anything irreparably. As soon as you remove the layer, all the core functions and settings of the parent theme will be there as if you didn’t change anything.

This is why most WordPress experts will say it’s best practice to create a child theme and use it to add new features or style changes to your theme. More importantly, they will tell you. You should never manipulate or directly edit WordPress core files, plugin files, or theme files.. Instead, you should always use a child theme to make any changes.

Benefits of Using Child Themes in WordPress

As we said earlier, the main reason to use a child theme is to make sure your parent theme is secure and receives important changes, updates, etc. Afterwards, it is to make sure that the performance of your website does not deteriorate.

Some of the advantages of using a child theme are:

When Should You Use a Child Theme?

While it is clear that child themes have many important benefits and can make your life a lot easier as a WordPress user, that doesn’t mean all WordPress users have to use these. In fact, many will never need one.

Essentially, it all depends on the type of changes you intend to make.

any changes involving edit theme’s CSS style sheet, PHP templates and functions.php file as well as theme folder files Requires you to use a child theme (including JS files and images).

On the other hand, only Simple changes via your Dashboard You don’t need a child theme (including changes made via the Theme Customizer, which ironically don’t actually change your theme files).

Problems Using Child Themes

There are really no downsides or downsides when it comes to using a child theme for your WordPress website. If you have good reasons to use one – as we just mentioned above – you should definitely use it. But there are a couple of things to keep in mind here.

First of all, you need to know if you are going to work on the child theme yourself (and not have it done by a developer, WordPress hosting support technician, or any other WordPress expert). comes with a learning curve. It gets easier with time and the first child contact is the hardest to manage, but you need to prepare yourself for some hard work.

The second thing about it is that WordPress child themes are ideal for minor to medium changes, not a complete overhaul of themes. If you’re working with a theme that takes a ton of work to make it look and work the way you want it to, it could be a sign that you picked the wrong theme.

final thoughts

Having a child theme on hand is definitely a good idea, but as we’ve seen, it’s not something all WordPress users should consider a necessity. It’s definitely part of best practice to use a child theme for any changes to theme style and functionality. So if you are considering making such changes to your WordPress website – make sure you have a child theme ready. The good news is that most premium WordPress theme developers, including Qode Interactive, offer WordPress child themes with their products, so you don’t have to create one on your own.