1. Upload a parent theme of your choice via FTP
2. Upload a child theme via FTP
3. Activate the child theme

For this tutorial, I’ll be using the Thematic theme framework as the parent theme, although these steps could apply to any WordPress theme you’d like. I’m also going to assume you already have a working WordPress installation.

Upload the Parent Theme

Download the Thematic theme (from the page linked to above) and extract the zip file. Take the /thematic/ folder and upload it to your /wp-content/themes/ directory through FTP.

If you don’t have an FTP client, I would recommend FileZilla. It’s free and open source, kinda like WordPress.

Since this article is titled How To Install a WordPress Child Theme, and I’m assuming you want to install a child theme over the parent theme, this step is over.

Upload the Child Theme

The next step is to find a child theme that is designed to be installed over the parent theme you chose. In this case, I’ll be using the A Simple Love child theme for Thematic.

Similar to the previous step, you extract the /a-simple-love/ folder and upload it to the /wp-content/themes/ directory via your FTP client.

Activate the Child Theme

Now that you have both the parent theme and child theme uploaded, the final step is to activate the child theme. In your WordPress admin panel, simply navigate to the Appearance -> Themes menu, and select the child theme you selected. You don’t need to activate the parent theme. All that it needs to do is sit in the theme directory.

Conclusion

Hope you found this tutorial useful. I know a lot of this material seems pretty obvious to some of you. Keep in mind, however, this tutorial was meant for beginners who are looking to get started with child themes. Let me know what you thought of the tutorial in the comments.