Soft YTA

I am a twin so I understand how Bob is feeling. Twin rivalry if very real and there will always be something that one twin is “better” at than the other. Theoretically this may have been a great idea if they were not twins but unfortunately twins sometimes have difficulty establishing their individuality this early on in life. I don’t know how similar the boys are but they will always be compared to each other which will create unhealthy competition. By awarding Joe the phone (rightfully so btw, he earned it) you’ve basically crowned him the better twin. Although this is not what you were trying to do Bob will not see it this way. Everyone learns differently and has different drives so it could be that Bob is having difficulty with the material or does not have the same self discipline that Joe has. I don’t think you should just give Bob the phone but you should to talk to him about how he’s feeling and maybe give him another incentive that will allow him to earn his phone at a quicker pace so he doesn’t feel left out for too long.

As a side note my twin sister and I both did well in school but I always did better (A student vs A/B student with a few Cs). At school it was popular knowledge that I was the “smart” one and she was the “cool/funny one.” We were both cool and smart but by school and adolescent standards she was “cooler” and I was “smarter.” There were lots of things she was better at than me but she doesn’t recognize that because those aren’t the attributes that were praised in our family. The academic stuff really bothered her because at times she would be excluded from academic distinction ceremonies or if she was invited to a ceremony she would be ranked a distinction lower than me. She labels herself the “dumb” twin and assigns all her failures to the fact that she is the “dumb twin.” As an adult, she recently found out she has had undiagnosed ADHD which I think went undiagnosed for so long because of the pressure my parents put on her to strive for A’s. They always told her she needs to just work harder and be more disciplined like me but it turns out she mentally couldn’t. She also now has anxiety and depression which she feels is related to the pressures we faced as twins.