We don’t know how, but it’s already back-to-school season. Three months of summer whizzed by and here we are, bracing for the academic year ahead. Whether you’re a parent whose kids are heading into their first day of kindergarten or their last day of high school, or a college student yourself, everybody needs some time to adjust to post-summer life and a few tips to make the next nine months as headache-free as possible.

We all want more of it, but summer vacation may actually be detrimental for children’s education, suggests research cited by the Economist. Other than the fact that three months of summer holiday maybe challenging for parents, who often tend to shape their schedules around their children’s time in school, “children will return from the long break having forgotten much of what they were taught the previous year.” The amount of learning lost during that time “could equate to a quarter of the year’s education.”

Some education experts have suggested solutions such as a longer school year or more spread out holidays. But data from South Korea, for example — where the summer holiday is only three weeks long — shows that even though students achieve top scores on standardized math, science, and reading tests, they also tend to have a relatively high incidence of mental health issues. “We need more learning [over the summer], but not necessarily more schooling,” the National Summer Learning Association’s Matthew Boulay says.