Preparing Your Child for College: Choosing a Major

Your mantra should be, "Explore, but don't decide." Most students, unless they are pre-med or on some other fast track, do not have to declare or decide their major in their freshman year. So there is no particular problem, and lots of benefits, to suggesting to your son that he take some acting classes and act as much as he likes, just so long as he also investigates other life options by taking classes in fields that might also potentially interest him.

If your son wails that nothing else interests him, you can calmly reply, "Maybe so, but we want you to do your honorable best to investigate some other fields, just in case one of them grabs your interest and acting doesn't. We're not going to tell you what to take, but we expect that we will sit down with the catalog and take your best shot at identifying some other fields of interest."

This is such a reasonable approach that it will be really hard for your son to refuse your request.