For a boy that was locked in the garage as punishment for being greedy, who had to walk around his neighborhood and beg for food because his parents would not feed him, his dogs were a source of affection.

"Pets equal unconditional love," Dr. Mark Foster said. "They're important to all three of the children." Details about the emotional, psychological and mental state of a 14-year-old boy who was forced to live in the garage at times and his two younger sisters were revealed yesterday in a custody hearing at the 367th District court.

According to Foster, a child psychologist assessing all three of the Reid's children for Child Protective Services, the boy has shown signs that people with antisocial personality disorder display. "He's an angry young man. His anger is tempered with some ambivalence. At points during my interview he was able to say, 'the treatment I had received was unfair. It wasn't right,'" he said.

The treatment the boy received under his parents has given him a perspective of the world that concerned Foster.

"Cedric is developing, or to some extent, already has developed a view of the world as a hostile place, a place where people can't be trusted, particularly that persons in authority are capricious. They are harsh. They are controlling. Even more specifically, he developed a mentality that the best defense is a good offense," he said.

On Nov. 5, Lorenzo Cortez Reid and his wife, Nadia, were arrested on charges of child endangerment when police found their 14-year-old son locked in their garage with no access to food. Lorenzo is an applied technology and performance improvement junior at NT and Nadia is a special education masters student.

According to Child Protective Services investigator, Michelle Hiza, the boy was also exposed to physical punishment. Hiza remembers the boy telling her that his mother had slapped his face until it was swollen. Foster also said that the boy would get "whippings" from his father. Food was also used as punishment for the boy's sisters.

According to Foster's testimony, the girls also have psychological trauma. The boy's 6-year-old sister has a lot more anxiety, depression and generalized fear. She also has the same outlook on the world as her brother. Hunger was a recurring theme during his assessment with the children. Hunger, according to Foster, represents "physical hunger and unmet needs."

"For Cedric, food is an unknown quantity, it's something that he's certainly not sure that it's going to be there tomorrow or not. It's something that he feels that is an object of control," he said.

Foster said that all three children need to be placed in a home where the caregivers are warm, nurturing, receptive and supportive. They also have to give the children a chance to talk about their feelings. "Food and shelter should not be used as tools of punishment," he said.

Foster raised objections to visitation by the parents and also said that separating them would be emotionally harmful to the children. When asked about placing the children under the care of relatives, Foster said that the children would not feel safe with them.

Falahat Agha, Nadia Reid's mother, hired a lawyer to gain custody of her grandchildren. According to Sandy Romero, a court-appointed special advocate, Agha was a viable option for placement. During her interviews with the children, she said that their moods lightened up when she talked about their grandmother. Even the boy, who is not biologically related to Agha, lit up when talking about "Nani" as the children called her.

"She's a nice lady, I love her very much. She gives me lots of gifts. But I don't get to talk to her a lot because my father doesn't allow me to interact with her," the boy told Romero. The custody hearing was postponed for today at 1:30 p.m.

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