How a parent comforts a child's worries about death may depend on the family's religion. Millions of Christian children have recited the prayer
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I shall die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
I don't know if this prayer calms more children than it worries, but the idea that death is not final could be comforting.
An atheist could point to statistics showing that the chance of dying young in the U.S. or other parts of the Western world is very small.
