So a Child Theme, at its most basic, is just a stylesheet that “extends” the parent theme. More complex child themes include theme template files (.php) that either extend or completely “rewrite” the parent theme’s template files.
So to create your own child theme create a folder in your themes directory, give it a name – something like [parent-theme-name]-child.
Inside that directory create or add a CSS stylesheet. This stylesheet needs to be formatted a specific way. It needs to have code like this at the top:
/*
Theme Name: Twenty Fifteen Child
Theme URI: https://example.com/twenty-fifteen-child/
Description: Twenty Fifteen Child Theme
Author: John Doe
Author URI: https://example.com
Template: twentyfifteen
Version: 1.0.0
License: GNU General Public License v2 or later
License URI: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
Tags: light, dark, two-columns, right-sidebar, responsive-layout, accessibility-ready
Text Domain: twenty-fifteen-child
*/
See that Template: twentyfifteen bit? That’s the magic that tells WordPress that this is a child theme.
Now in your particular case you want to edit the header template, make a copy of the parent theme’s header.php file and place it in your child theme directory.
You can now edit the header.php code to make the changes you need.
Now in an ideal world, these links would be part of a content or widget area where you could make such changes using the standard editors inside of WordPress and avoid the whole “edit the theme” issue.
Hope this helps!
