If you are still looking for answers, after many attempts of hit and trial I found this to work. Haven’t done more digging. But this at least sets up the child theme.
In style.css
/*
Template: zerif-lite
*/
@import url("../zerif-lite/style.css");
This seems to work. You should probably use functions.php
but this is as far as i have managed.
Earlier I was getting an error in dashboard > appearance saying that the template is wrong. So i just took out everything except the template and the child theme was installed properly. Also, after activating the child theme, the images used by Zerif Lite kinda disappeared, not that it bothers me, just putting it out there.
Hope it helps.