Every child has a Kitty Hawk moment.
A moment when they try something brave and discover the ground doesn’t always cooperate.
December 17, 1903, is the date ascribed to the birth of aviation.
The Wright Flyer 1 — designed, built, and flown by Wilbur and Orville Wright — became the model for today’s airplane. The two brothers, full of creativity and courage, selected Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, as the launch point for their creation.
Wilbur, the older of the two, naturally went first. Though he put everything he had into the attempt, he failed.
Then came Orville’s turn. Putting his brother’s unsuccessful try behind him, Orville sought to better what Wilbur had attempted.
The result? He flew their homemade plane for 12 seconds — and changed the world.
While Wilbur and Orville’s flight is a powerful picture of ingenuity, the purpose of this post is to launch something even more important — to teach grandchildren that life is a flight, and flights don’t always lift off on the first try.
Your grandchild will have their own Kitty Hawk moments — a tryout they don’t make, a friendship that falls apart, a subject at school that just won’t click no matter how hard they study. And in that moment, they’ll be watching you. Not to see if you can fix it. To see how you respond when something doesn’t work.
Here’s what you get to teach them, using two brothers on a cold beach in 1903:
Wilbur went first, and he failed. Sit with your grandchild in that. Let them know that even the people we now call heroes didn’t get it right the first time. Ask them: “Has something ever not worked out for you, even when you tried your best?”
Orville didn’t quit — he learned from what didn’t work. He studied his brother’s attempt and adjusted. That’s the whole secret, and it’s small enough for a child to hold onto: you don’t have to succeed. You just have to try again, a little smarter than last time.
Both brothers soared, because Wilbur helped Orville prepare. This is the part I want you to underline for your grandchild. Wilbur’s failure wasn’t wasted — it became the information that made Orville’s flight possible. Nothing your grandchild goes through, even the hard landings, has to be wasted either.
Have an object with a story behind it? As a Grandparent Pass member, you can request a custom object lesson built around it — up to two a month.
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