What do i say when.....?

Question

My stepson keeps asking me about death.. He is 12 and he keeps asking me what is it like in heaven.. I told him the best to my knowledge..that his soul goes to heaven and he gets to do or be anything that he wants to be that it is beautiful and he will be there with all his loved ones. Also i stressed to him that you are very young and you dont need to be worring about that right now. Even your father and I will be here with you for another 60-70 years to see you with all your children and grandchildren. But he came homw from school today and started to cry asking me a hundred of question about it again saying he is worried about dieing and does heaven have cars,boats playstations..???? he says that all he keeps thinking about it's worring him...what do i do???

Answer 1

Just keep reassuring him as best you can, but he will have to come to terms with it himself, and form his own ideas about it.
Find out what he thinks death is. Listen to his ideas about it and if you can identify what aspect of it he thinks is terrifying, try to guide him toward a more positive idea. But don' t make stuff up just to make him feel better, be sincere.

Answer 2

Death is a fascinating subject. The human race seems to wonder about this often. He may not want reassured about heaven but the act of death its self. It is normal for children this age to wonder. I would listen. Let him get it off his chest and ask follow up questions. Tell him he can ask you anything he wants to know and you will answer it to the best of your ability. Once his curiosity is cleared he will move from this phase. Maybe he has a freind at school who knows someone who is dying and they talk about it on a daily basis. This coudl be worrying him.

Answer 3

I tell kids heaven is a great place--just think of all the things you love here on earth and times it by ten. Be honest with him and let him know that death happens but it isn't a bad thing. It means that God had better things in store for that person that they just couldn't do on earth. Let him know the power of God and he'll be fine. Best of luck!

Answer 4

Talk to him again and make sure that you stress if something should happen to him you would miss him something terrible. Seems im the only one taking this route, but if my child all of a sudden was worried about death I would be scared and would get help.. good luck

Answer 5

Did he have a classmate that died recently? Or have a classmate that lost a loved one? Did a teacher at his school die? This is usually when these things come up. Talk to the school counselor and see if you can find out if something happened. Ask your step-son if someone he knew at school died.

Answer 6

Can you ask him why he is so preoccupied with death/dying? Is there something going on at his school that has caused this? Ask him if one of his schoolmates has lost a family member recently. If you can't figure out why he's so hung up about this, perhaps you need to speak with a professional (child counselor).

Answer 7

he's obviously talking to some punk kid that is feeding him a bunch of crap about death. possibly some kid who has recently lost someone. talk to the teacher and ask him who your stepson talks to/ hangs out with and get to the bottom of this. there is no reason for him to be going through all this stress

Answer 8

This could be in response to Sept 11th. I was horrified to hear that they were going to go into that in the elementry school... my girl is in Kindergarten, she's too young for that! I took her out of school for the day. When the time comes for something like that *I* want to be the one who tells her. There were a lot of somber kids that day...