‘Hello, what’s your name?’

That’s a great start. Especially when the child concerned has previously shown little to no inclination to be sociable.

However, when the addressee is two and shy and says nothing, the next step probably shouldn’t be to remark ‘I don’t think she heard me,’ and then crouch down, nose-to-nose, and shout, ‘HELLO, WHAT’S YOUR NAME!’

That is exactly what Elspeth did with several children at Child’s Play today. Fortunately for me, the parents of the other children just laughed and didn’t seem to mind that my daughter was screaming at their darlings demanding identification. And even happier, eventually Elspeth did ‘make friends’ with two of the children; twins called Chloe and Jake. Elspeth and Evelyn played with those two for quite a while, as I chatted with their mother, until we had to leave. Hooray for ‘making friends’.