How to explain to a child about cremation and the release of someones soul

When I was explaining to my 12 year old that cremation was like releasing someones soul into heaven, he then asked but I thought there soul was released when they took their last breath. How can I explain cremation better?

Cremation is in no way related to the release of someone's soul. Your own 12 year old child just proved you wrong, that's gotta hurt. The soul is released when the last breath is taken. Cremation is simply the act of burning the body into ash. There are many reasons to do this, but none of them are to allow the soul to be released from the body, because that happens at death anyways. Tell your 12 year old that cremation is when people put a dead body in a box (usually cardboard, sadly), and that box is on a conveyor belt, and the conveyor belt carries the box into an incinerator, which then proceeds to burn the body and box into ash (and some bone fragments). From there the body is placed into an urn of the family's choosing, and taken home by the family. Oh and one final note: they usually incinerate several bodies at once.

If you're going to talk about 'heaven' with your child, then it might be wise to tell them the truth, whatever your truth may be. In this day and age, 12 year old kids aren't stupid, and you can definitely tell them things straight up; and since you're telling them about heaven, be sure to throw Christ in there somewhere, since He really is the only way, and not an incinerator.