I’ve had some struggles with this topic with my children because they latched on to the concept of heaven long before “god” even came into the picture. We had a major death in the family when they were very young and I know the concept of heaven was a coping mechanism for them. Now that the two have been linked as they’ve grown older, I don’t want to shatter that reality for them and perhaps open up a new source of grief.
In hindsight, I know a better approach would have been to address god early on and separate heaven from that idea and instead focus on the spirituality of the afterlife.
I am confident however that as they mature, this conversation will become much easier and they will have the emotional capacity to manage the reality that death is actually just a hole in the ground lol
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