How do I get the Html Element (or Locker API SecureElement) for a child LWC component?

In an LWC component, this.template.querySelector() appears to return an Element (or probably SecureElement) for standard HTML elements, but something else for child components. For example:

this.template.querySelector('div').scrollIntoView();

This will find the first div and correctly scroll it into view. On the other hand:

this.template.querySelector('c-child').scrollIntoView();

does not work. I can verify that this.template.querySelector('c-child') is indeed returning an object that represents the first c-child custom LWC component, and the call to scrollIntoView() does not return an error, but the display does not move. I assume that the object return is not the SecureElement representing the <c-child> node in my <template>.

I am able to get the desired behavior by adding a public api method to c-child:

@api
scrollToHere() {
    this.template.querySelector('div').scrollIntoView();
}

and calling it from the parent, e.g.,

this.template.querySelector('c-child').scrollToHere();

But this seems unnecessary since there should be a element in the DOM to represent the <c-child> element, but either .querySelector('c-child') doesn’t return that element, or LWC elements don’t support standard SecureElement methods such as .scrollIntoView(). I tried a few variations such as this.template.querySelector('c-child').element.scrollIntoView(); without success.