Basically you can’t : How to style the parent element when hovering a child element?
But a trick is to use a sibling element :
http://jsfiddle.net/k3Zdt/8/
.parent {
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
padding: 50px;
}
.child {
height: 100px;
width: 100px;
background: #355E95;
transition: background-color 1s;
position: relative;
top: -200px;
}
.child:hover {
background: #000;
}
.sibling {
position: relative;
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
padding: 50px;
top: -50px;
left: -50px;
background: #3D6AA2;
transition: background-color 1s;
}
.sibling:hover {
background: #FFF;
}
<div class="parent">
<div class="sibling"></div>
<div class="child"></div>
</div>