Today I chuckled to hear a small child promise from her buggy, ‘If you’re a good girl, you can have an ice cream.’

It was a shame her mother didn’t clarify things even by the joke response, ‘I’m always a good girl!’ Or ‘Would you like an ice cream as well?’

Indeed, she looked startled when I asked if I had heard right, but then just agreed I had.

Another similar instance was a little boy in the park peering through a tube and asking, ‘Can I see you?’

The logical response to this is, ‘I don’t know – can you see me?’ But it might be more helpful to reply, ‘I can see you – can you see me?’ with some helpful pointing to show who’s being talked about. This at least demonstrates what the child probably meant.

The pronoun system is very hard to explain – just keep trying to use the words and make it clear who’s being spoken about.