Why are parents in oceania often afraid of their children's?

Parents in Oceania are often afraid of their children because they believed that the minds of a child could just be easily manipulated and controlled and they could be used as a spy against their parents. Therefore, they give extreme security to their children so as the incident be avoided to happen.

As the boys sleep, military airplanes battle fiercely above the island. none of the boys sees the explosions and flashes in the clouds because the twins sam and eric, who were supposed to watch the signal fire, have fallen asleep. during the battle, a parachutist drifts down from the sky onto the island, dead.