Did you know that …

• 3 out of every 100 people in the Netherlands experience symptoms of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) or winter depression . 

• SAD can also occur during the spring and summer, known as summer-pattern SAD or summer depression. For more on the symptoms, check here. Whether it is winter or summer depression, consult your huisarts (GP) if these symptoms consistently disrupt your daily life.

• Light therapy is often effective for winter depression, but it should not be used without consulting to your huisarts (GP), as it can disrupt your biological clock. The same applies to taking melatonin.

Some concepts in psychology never get old. Instead, they grow stronger. Social comparison — comparisons we make with other people — is one of such concepts.

Imagine all the thoughts that pass through an adult’s mind in an ordinary day. Of all those thoughts, 7.1% is social comparisons, a study shows. Similarly, my colleagues and I found in a study that social comparisons are also frequent in daily lives of adolescents.

But why are we so wrapped up in making social comparisons?

In a previous blog post, we talked about what social and emotional skills entail, the problem with these skills, and a cool project that set out to address it. In this post, I would like to share my experiences in how social-and-emotional-skill trainings are typically delivered to youth.

But first comes a critical question:

In a typical school day, interaction with peers takes a great portion of the day. Such interactions are essential for the development of social and emotional skills especially from early childhood onward. In fact, positive peer relationships provide children with a context where they could learn and develop their skills in self-awareness, communication, negotiation, assertiveness, perspective taking, and problem solving. We call such skills social and emotional skills.

“Social and emotional skills is an “umbrella term” involving a variety of skills that are connected and build on to each other.”