Nine-year-old Matilda* melted down in the backseat just moments into the 40-minute drive home.

"I can’t read this! I don’t know the words! It’s too hard!” she shouted, flinging aside the book Friend Sarah had asked her to read aloud.

Moments earlier, she and her Friend had left the third day of a six-part horse camp at Solid Ground Therapy Center – a place where Matilda and other program youth were learning new ways to feel safe, connect, and communicate.

It was a typical light-switch moment – Matilda’s trauma-impacted brain reacting immediately and intensely to a perceived threat.

Sarah didn’t argue or correct. Instead, she leaned into calming techniques and that day’s focus on nonverbal communication. She began to breathe, slow and steady, in through her nose, hold, out through her mouth, hold. Then she started naming things visible from the front window – the “I see” part of a sensory grounding exercise. “I see a fish-shaped cloud. I see a V of geese...”

“I’m not doing that with you!” Matilda shouted, still wound up. But soon, Matilda joined in, settled down, and picked up her book.

The storm had passed, and Matilda read her book straight through, quickly and easily.

“She’s more capable than she thinks she is,” Sarah said.

With steady support, youth like Matilda learn how to move through overwhelming emotions and find their way to a place where they can think, learn, and succeed.

*name changed for privacy