Giving choices

This happened today, and not that I am very upset or what, but sometimes I don't know what goes through men's brain, or Ray's brain before they say something.

We have a lot of differences actually, with regards to disciplining children. Usually we handle it amicably, and I will constantly remind him to be firm and consistent, which is actually something damn difficult for him. SIGHHHHz. 

I shared with Ray before many times with regards to handling R, and one of the strategies we talked about, especially when R is being difficult, we offer him choices. Let him choose, let him feel that he has some authority over his own life, decide his own preferences, but actually it is to guide him to choose what we wanted him to do. 

For e.g. R is fussing about not wanting to shower, because he wants to play toys. So we offer him 2 choices: 

a) shower now and come back to play later. (and we sompa no one will go touch the toys or attempt to shift that blue sports car 2 cm closer to the bus made of Lego, because he will know.)

b) don't shower and we will keep all toys now, and no more playing for the day.

So R being the smart kid he is, will choose 'A' and we will all have a happy ending! Usually this work very well, maybe until they get even smarter and know how to sabo our plan.

Then this Ray today come out with this annoying question:

"R, do you want to drink milk?" (And to 4year olds, this meant Daddy was giving him a choice of milk or otherwise, which can be up to him to choose, since Daddy offered no other options.)

So R said,"No, no. I want milo."

Daddy went,"Huh milo? How many times you drink milo already?" (DUH. R just woke up and we are giving him his breakfast drink, so what he meant by, "how many already"?)

R insisted he wants milo, and daddy looks hesitant about giving him milo. So I asked him, "why did you give a choice when you don't want to give him what he chose?" He replied saying he didn't want R to drink too much milo. So I said that then he should just tell him he will be warming milk for him, no question marks. Why offer options when there really isn't any you wanna offer?

So in the end, Daddy gave him milo.

It is annoying, because this to me, is equivalent to me going to a shop to buy bag, and the retail assistant very helpful asked me what colour I wanted, and I chose, "Red!" 

"Red sold out, sorry. What colour would you like?"

"Blue then."

"Sorry, no blue too. What colour would you like?"

"Then I take black."

"Sorry, no black also. What colour would you like?"

And I will scream in my head, "THEN WHAT COLOUR YOU HAVE??!?!?!!??"

I am not really angry kind of annoyed. I am just saying while frowning and roll eyes abit, if can roll abit... haha... If even I am frustrated, I can totally understand if R is confused and starts throwing tantrum. 

And most importantly, to me, this is not the right way. Because then now Ray needs to argue with R about whether he can have milo or not, and if he cannot, what is a good reason that R would agree to? Then when Daddy don't immediately agree, R will take it as a rejection, and he does not react very well to rejections, especially from Daddy, so why why why why, Daddy want to put himself in such a position??? Strange or not???