How to add a class with React.js?

Since you already have <Tags> component calling a function on its parent, you do not need additional state: simply pass the filter to the <Tags> component as a prop, and use this in rendering your buttons. Like so:

Change your render function inside your <Tags> component to:

render: function() {
  return <div className = "tags">
    <button className = {this._checkActiveBtn('')} onClick = {this.setFilter.bind(this, '')}>All</button>
    <button className = {this._checkActiveBtn('male')} onClick = {this.setFilter.bind(this, 'male')}>male</button>
    <button className = {this._checkActiveBtn('female')} onClick = {this.setFilter.bind(this, 'female')}>female</button>
    <button className = {this._checkActiveBtn('blonde')} onClick = {this.setFilter.bind(this, 'blonde')}>blonde</button>
  </div>
},

And add a function inside <Tags>:

_checkActiveBtn: function(filterName) {
  return (filterName == this.props.activeFilter) ? "btn active" : "btn";
}

And inside your <List> component, pass the filter state to the <tags> component as a prop:

return <div>
  <h2>Kids Finder</h2> 
  <Tags filter = {this.state.filter} onChangeFilter = {this.changeFilter} />
  {list}
</div>

Then it should work as intended. Codepen here (hope the link works)

Taken from their site.

render() {
  let className = 'menu';
  if (this.props.isActive) {
    className += ' menu-active';
  }
  return <span className={className}>Menu</span>
}

https://reactjs.org/docs/faq-styling.html

It is simple. take a look at this

https://codepen.io/anon/pen/mepogj?editors=001

basically you want to deal with states of your component so you check the currently active one. you will need to include

getInitialState: function(){}
//and 
isActive: function(){}

check out the code on the link

this is pretty useful:

https://github.com/JedWatson/classnames

You can do stuff like

classNames('foo', 'bar'); // => 'foo bar'
classNames('foo', { bar: true }); // => 'foo bar'
classNames({ 'foo-bar': true }); // => 'foo-bar'
classNames({ 'foo-bar': false }); // => ''
classNames({ foo: true }, { bar: true }); // => 'foo bar'
classNames({ foo: true, bar: true }); // => 'foo bar'

// lots of arguments of various types
classNames('foo', { bar: true, duck: false }, 'baz', { quux: true }); // => 'foo bar baz quux'

// other falsy values are just ignored
classNames(null, false, 'bar', undefined, 0, 1, { baz: null }, ''); // => 'bar 1'

or use it like this

var btnClass = classNames('btn', this.props.className, {
  'btn-pressed': this.state.isPressed,
  'btn-over': !this.state.isPressed && this.state.isHovered
});