Blender Armature Edit Mode: Why Moving a Parent Bone Doesn’t Move the Child

If you are coming to Blender from Maya, Cinema 4D, or general 3D animation tools, one of the biggest initial stumbling blocks is bone behavior in Edit Mode: you grab a parent bone, press G, move it across the screen, and the child bone stays completely frozen in place.

It feels broken, but it is entirely intentional.

Here is the exact reason Blender separates Edit Mode from Pose Mode, how bone connection states work, and how to move full hierarchies during skeleton setup.

1. Edit Mode vs. Pose Mode (The "Rest Pose" Rule)

Blender splits rigging tasks across two distinct modes:

Edit Mode is for defining the Rest Pose (Bind Pose): In this mode, you are defining the neutral spatial location, orientation, head/tail positions, and bone rolls relative to your character's geometry. Blender assumes that if you are tweaking an individual joint—like nudging an elbow bone to align with an edge loop—you do not want the forearm, hand, and fingers to cascade out of alignment.
Pose Mode is for evaluation and animation: In Pose Mode, the kinematic hierarchy is live. Moving or rotating a parent immediately transforms all downstream children.

If you just want to test if your parenting hierarchy works as expected, hit Ctrl + Tab (or use the mode dropdown) to jump into Pose Mode. Grab (G) or rotate (R) the parent, and the children will follow.

2. "Connected" vs. "Keep Offset" Parenting

If you are in Edit Mode and want to understand how the bones link together, it comes down to the connection type set in the bone relationship:

Keep Offset: The child inherits the parent's transformation in Pose Mode, but its starting root (head) sits away from the parent at a distance. In Edit Mode, the parent and child move independently because there is no physical joint constraint.
Connected: The Head of the child bone is locked directly to the Tail of the parent bone. In Edit Mode, if you select and move the parent bone's tail, the child's head will move with it because they share the exact same pivot point. (However, if you select only the parent's body or head, the child's tail will still remain stationary).

How to Make Bones Connected

Enter Edit Mode.
Select the Child Bone.
In the Properties panel, click the Bone Properties tab (the green bone icon).
Expand the Relations panel.
Under Parent, check the box for Connected. (The child's head will snap directly to the parent's tail).


[Parent Bone Head] ------> [Parent Bone Tail]
│
├── Connected: Child Head welded directly here
└── Keep Offset: Child Head floats freely in space

Note: If your rig requires disjointed limbs, floating IK targets, or offset mechanical pivots, leave Connected unchecked. For contiguous skeletal structures (spines, fingers, limbs), use Connected.

3. How to Move a Parent AND its Children in Edit Mode

What if you actually need to reposition an entire branch of bones in Edit Mode without re-rigging every single joint? You do not have to reposition each bone manually.

Use hierarchy selection shortcuts in Edit Mode:

Select Bone Hierarchy: Select the parent bone, press Shift + ] (or go to Select > Grouped > Children). This automatically selects the parent and every nested descendant in the chain. Pressing G or R will now transform the entire limb together.
Linked Selection: Hover your cursor over the parent bone and press L to select all connected bones along that physical chain.
Proportional Editing (O): If you need adjacent bones to move smoothly along with a joint adjustment, turn on Proportional Editing with connected falloff (Alt + O).

Understanding this structural separation makes building custom rigs in Blender far faster: use Edit Mode to position individual joint pivots without breaking downstream alignments, use Shift + ] when you need to reposition entire chains, and evaluate kinematic flow strictly in Pose Mode.