Child Abuse And Children In Three Little Words By Ashley Rhodes Courter

“She poured a meager portion of Lucky Charms… she rummaged in the refrigerator for a gallon of milk. It poured thickly ...the first swallow made me gag..A flume of vomit arched onto the floor. ‘You’ve ruined the carpet!’ Mrs.Moss screeched. She gripped my hair and pushed my face into my puke,” (Rhodes-Courter 68). That was just one terrible section that came from the autobiographical book Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes Courter. In it, she describes her childhood growing up in foster care with her younger brother. Mrs.Moss was her foster mother who also forced her to run with a broken ankle, made her squat as punishment, starve her and the other foster children in the house, as well as force them to drink hot sauce. That wasn’t the only

I remember always going straight to the “tough section” of Chicken Soup for the Soul books. I was always amazed with how these children, who have gone through extremely traumatic incidents, manage to turn their lives around for the better. This interest is what lead me to read Three Little Words; and while reading it I couldn’t understand how these people could treat children so terribly. I managed to come out with an unanswered question. How does child abuse affect children? Three Little Words follows Ashley up to her twenties, but it never goes into detail how the abuse affected her. Luckily, Ashley is adopted into a loving home, where she can thrive. She became a New York Times bestselling author, a philanthropist, a child welfare advocate, and a public speaker. Her brother was sadly not so lucky; the family that was planning on adopting him sent him back due to his behavioral issues. The book does not go into detail much about what happens after that incident, but it does state that he had developmental problems, and was extremely attached to his sister. While researching Ashley, I discovered that her brother had died at age twenty-nine due to a drug

Physical abuse is abuse that causes injury from beating, punching, kicking, etc. Sexual abuse is the mistreatment of a child by molestation, rape, prostitution. Neglect is the failure to take care of a child's needs like food, shelter, education, and love (Jackson and Primavera). While these three types may be different in the form of abuse, they all have very similar negative effects to the child’s well