Getting reference to child component in parent component

You may actually go with ViewChild API...

• Check your forked plunker for complete code - ViewChild API

parent.ts

<button (click)="clicked()">click</button>

export class App {
  @ViewChild(Child) vc:Child;
  constructor() {
    this.name = 'Angular2'
  }

  func(e) {
    console.log(e)

  }
  clicked(){
   this.vc.getName();
  }
}

child.ts

export class Child implements OnInit{

  onInitialized = new EventEmitter<Child>();
  ...  
  ...
  getName()
  {
     console.log('called by vc')
     console.log(this.name);
  }
}

You need to leverage the @ViewChild decorator to reference the child component from the parent one by injection:

import { Component, ViewChild } from 'angular2/core';  

(...)

@Component({
  selector: 'my-app',
  template: `
    <h1>My First Angular 2 App</h1>
    <child></child>
    <button (click)="submit()">Submit</button>
  `,
  directives:[App]
})
export class AppComponent { 
  @ViewChild(Child) child:Child;

  (...)

  someOtherMethod() {
    this.searchBar.someMethod();
  }
}

Here is the updated plunkr: http://plnkr.co/edit/mrVK2j3hJQ04n8vlXLXt?p=preview.

You can notice that the @Query parameter decorator could also be used:

export class AppComponent { 
  constructor(@Query(Child) children:QueryList<Child>) {
    this.childcmp = children.first();
  }

  (...)
}

You can use ViewChild

<child-tag #varName></child-tag>

@ViewChild('varName') someElement;

ngAfterViewInit() {
  someElement...
}

where varName is a template variable added to the element. Alternatively, you can query by component or directive type.

There are alternatives like ViewChildren, ContentChild, ContentChildren.

@ViewChildren can also be used in the constructor.

constructor(@ViewChildren('var1,var2,var3') childQuery:QueryList)

The advantage is that the result is available earlier.

See also http://www.bennadel.com/blog/3041-constructor-vs-property-querylist-injection-in-angular-2-beta-8.htm for some advantages/disadvantages of using the constructor or a field.

Note: @Query() is the deprecated predecessor of @ContentChildren()

• https://github.com/angular/angular/blob/2.0.0-beta.17/modules/angular2/src/core/metadata.dart#L146
• https://github.com/angular/angular/blob/2.0.0-beta.17/modules/angular2/src/core/metadata.dart#L175

Update

Query is currently just an abstract base class. I haven't found if it is used at all https://github.com/angular/angular/blob/2.1.x/modules/@angular/core/src/metadata/di.ts#L145