In Erikson's "Stage Two" children are trying to become self-confident and do things themselves ("Autonomy vs. Doubt"), like tying their own shoes even if it takes hours. Parents should let them do things because, according to Erikson, "...failure to reinforce these efforts will lead the child to doubt themselves" and doubt a parents' trust in them. When Bambi ventured out of his little sleeping spot into the snow for the first time, surely his mom knew he would slip and slide and even get banged up a little. But she stayed in the sleeping nest spot and let Bambi learn for himself, which he did by slipping on the ice over and over before he finally got his feet under him and learned about the reality of slippery ice.

Jean Piaget put forward a theory for very young children, that he called "heteronomous moral orientation." He theorized that in the natural authority relationship between adults and children, "power is handed down from above," and children have no choice but to listen and watch as they learn about that power. In the film the big 10-point buck emerges from the forest and all the bucks and does stand absolutely still. Bambi is fascinated by this sudden calm and quiet. "Why was everyone silent" when the huge male deer approached, he asked. Mom explained that it is about respect for those older and wiser than you. The big buck was called "brave and wise."

As for Sigmund Freud, reading his controversial theories...

Freud believed, for example, that personality develops through a series of childhood stages - which is not provocative - but these stages involve "pleasure-seeking energies" of the id, which become highly focused on erogenous areas of the body. And so the "psychosexual energy (libido)" that a child puts out is Freud's view of the force behind behavior. In Bambi's case, it would seem that indeed, sexual attraction did occur (the owl points out that birds and creatures become "twitter painted" in the springtime and animals get "weak in the knees") and he mated with Feline, as mature deer will do.
Kohlberg, who was a close follower of Piaget, believed that in Stage Four, concern is given toward obeying laws so society can stay strong; when the dogs nearly killed Feline and Bambi, and the fire burned down the forest and nearly killed the deer, Bambi was following the laws of nature. That is, do whatever you have to do to survive the challenges and dangers out there in the forest. The society of deer and other animals did work together (birds warned the deer that hunters were coming) to create a kind of democratic community, obeying those laws that their parents showed them and taught them and that life in the natural world taught them too.

Works Cited

Disney, Walt. (2005). Bambi: 2-Disc Special Edition. Buena Vista Home Entertainment.

Burbank, California. J4756.

Levine, Melvin D. (1999). Developmental Variation and Learning Disorders: Second Edition.

Cambridge, MA: Educators Publishing Service, Inc.

Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. (2007). Kohlberg's Moral Stages. Retrieved Feb. 15, 2008 at http://faculty.plts.edu/apence/html/kohlberg.htm.