What is a child theme and why you need to use one

A parent with multiple children and no regrets
A parent with multiple children and no regrets

Get the best out of your chosen theme

A WordPress child theme is a theme that inherits the functionality and styling of another theme, called the parent theme. Child themes are the recommended way of modifying an existing theme.

Using a child theme ensures that your modifications are preserved, even after the parent theme has been updated. The key feature of a WordPress child theme is that it allows you to make modifications to an existing theme without directly modifying the theme’s code. This means that if the parent theme is updated, your modifications will still be preserved.

Here are some of the benefits of using a WordPress child theme

  1. Your site will stay up-to-date – A child theme allows you to make use of the latest features, bug fixes and security updates from the parent theme, without having to manually update your site’s code.
  2. Customise your theme without fear – With a child theme, you can customize your theme without worrying about losing your changes when the parent theme is updated.
  3. Easily apply customisations to multiple sites – If you have multiple sites (multisite) that use the same parent theme, you can easily apply the same customizations to all of them by creating a single child theme.
  4. Easily switch back to the original theme – If you decide that you don’t like the changes you’ve made, you can quickly switch back to the original parent theme.

A WordPress child theme is the recommended way of modifying an existing WordPress theme. It allows you to make modifications to the theme without directly modifying the theme’s code, and provides the benefit of being able to easily switch back to the original theme if needed.