How to get a parent element to appear above child [duplicate]

Set a negative z-index for the child, and remove the one set on the parent.

.parent {
    position: relative;
    width: 350px;
    height: 150px;
    background: red;
    border: solid 1px #000;
}
.parent2 {
    position: relative;
    width: 350px;
    height: 40px;
    background: red;
    border: solid 1px #000;
}
.child {
    position: relative;
    background-color: blue;
    height: 200px;
}
.wrapper {
    position: relative;
    background: green;
    height: 350px;
}

<div class="wrapper">
    <div class="parent">parent 1 parent 1
        <div class="child">child child child</div>
    </div>
    <div class="parent2">parent 2 parent 2
    </div>
</div>

https://jsfiddle.net/uov5h84f/

Fortunately a solution exists. You must add a wrapper for parent and change z-index of this wrapper for example 10, and set z-index for child to -1:

.parent {
    position: relative;
    width: 750px;
    height: 7150px;
    background: red;
    border: solid 1px #000;
    z-index: initial;
}

.child {
    position: relative;
    background-color: blue;
    z-index: -1;
    color: white;
}

.wrapper {
    position: relative;
    background: green;
    z-index: 10;
}

<div class="wrapper">
    <div class="parent">parent parent
        <div class="child">child child child</div>
    </div>
</div>

Some of these answers do work, but setting position: absolute; and z-index: 10; seemed pretty strong just to achieve the required effect. I found the following was all that was required, though unfortunately, I've not been able to reduce it any further.

HTML:

<div class="wrapper">
    <div class="parent">
        <div class="child">
            ...
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

CSS:

.wrapper {
    position: relative;
    z-index: 0;
}

.child {
    position: relative;
    z-index: -1;
}

I used this technique to achieve a bordered hover effect for image links. There's a bit more code here but it uses the concept above to show the border over the top of the image.

http://jsfiddle.net/g7nP5/

You would need to use position:relative or position:absolute on both the parent and child to use z-index.