So You Don't Think It's Orwell's 1984, huh?

[DuckforcoveR]

Kids are asked to spy on their parents and neighbours are asked to watch for illegal
activity don by other neighbours.

I don't know if kids are asked to spy on their parents, but I'm sure if they wanted to use something for blackmail to get their way, they'd do it.

As for the neighbors, yes, we call that the community neighborhood watchdog.   Every block has a person who takes turns from house to house, so I've heard.  I think that is mostly for towns and cities.  I live in the country.

I don't know if SPY is the word, but relying on "kids say the darnedest things" certainly fits the bill. My daughter is in school for the first year and we go to the first conferences to find every morning the kids were asked about their home, their parents, what they do, what they watch, etc. All innocent in a way, but man, CONTEXT is completely missing. Case in point:

"What did your parents do last night?" "They yelled at me for hitting my sister"
"Did they do anything else after you hit your sister?" "No, well Mommy chased me into the room with a wooden spoon and told me to put my jammies on"
"What did daddy do?" "Daddy was playing with his sugar"
"Why does daddy play with sugar?"  "Because he says it makes him happy when breathes it in"

The context of course was that yes, she hit her sister. My better half is doing the dishes and pointed it at Maya while yelling "go get your jammies on!". After that I sat down to clean my KBOX vaper out, it just so happens that the first time my daughter saw me use it I thought it was easier to call it sugar than to explain it was a 100% VG e-liquid with a .6% nicotine level...So I just said "it's sugar honey, daddy's sugar and you don't ever touch it ok?"

Then there was the time I used to put my Moringa Powder in capsules that I bought on Amazon. 4 year old's can't elaborate on the green leafy stuff going into pills...

Then there was the time she caught me in the basement stringing my bow up for the first time in like 2 years, I probably shouldn't have said it's used to kill deer...although I'm sure the teachers understood there aren't actually any deer in my basement.

Then there was the time I was sick and binge watching TV which got written down as daddy watching TV all night drinking grownup stuff (she said "whats that for?" pointing at my NyQuil, I said "it's for drinking and it's for grownups")

Long story short, spying? Not necessarily, but they absolutely welcome their students to turn their parents in for anything.