Edit child theme so function occurs in different place

I’m using the twentytwelve theme. I’ve set up a child theme which consists of the basic “functions.php” and “style.css” files.

The twentytwelve theme puts meta data about each post (e.g., “This entry was posted in Uncategorized on 9/22/15 by …) in the post footer. I would like to move this meta data to the top of the post, under the post title. The data is generated with a function called twentytwelve_entry_meta.

It looks like content.php determines where this meta data will appear.
The twentytwelve theme has it located in the footer class:

<footer class="entry-meta">
   <?php twentytwelve_entry_meta(); ?>
   [LOTS OF OTHER CODE]
   </footer><!-- .entry-meta -->

Questions:

1. I don’t have a content.php file in my child theme. Do I need to create one? If so, what should it include? I’ve read you shouldn’t just copy the entire file from parent to child.

2. Once I have a content.php file in my child theme, what do I write so the meta data function occurs after the title post, instead of in the post footer?

If I wasn’t working with a child theme and just edited the parent theme files, I do know this works:

– In content.php, delete the line “<?php twentytwelve_entry_meta(); ?>” that exists in the <footer class=”entry-meta”> section.
– Insert the following text immediately after </header><!– .entry-header –>:

<footer class="entry-meta">
    <?php twentytwelve_entry_meta(); ?>
</footer><!-- .entry-meta -->

But since best practice is to use a child theme, I suspect I need a slightly different strategy.

Thank you for any help!