Avoiding Editing Core

I need to make changes to how some of the functionality behaves on the auction theme, for example changing the layout in the Bidding Options widget, Dashboard contents etc.

I dont expect it’s possible to use hooks/filters to do this, so I’m exploring other options

One was including the framework files I’m changing in the child theme, but this does not seem to work – any idea why it’s not referencing these files and looking at the parent theme instead?

Thanks
Nick