Hold up her end of a dinner conversation. She'll do this by summarizing her point of view clearly and logically and putting ideas that she heard at school or read in a book into her own words. When she's relating a story, she should be sticking to significant details, rather than minor, irrelevant items.

Write research reports and book reviews for school and become familiar with the proper style for bibliographies, footnoting and outlining. She will also be spending more time at the library and getting comfortable with its resources: encyclopedias, computer-based search engines and electronic card catalogs, for instance.

Be expected to do rough drafts, then proofread them, looking for spelling and grammatical errors as well as flaws in logic or the way her written work "flows."

Be introduced to debate so he or she can examine several aspects of an issue.

MATH
Your seventh-grader will increasingly:

Be expected to do all basic mathematical functions (add, subtract, multiply and divide) quickly and accurately.

Become well-acquainted with fractions, decimals and percents. He should know how to figure out how much a 15 percent tip is, for instance, without much strain.

Estimate, rather than have to solve a mathematical question to the decimal point. For instance, he'll "round up" from $3.80 to $4.00 in order to figure out the tip.

Be introduced to geometry and will develop a more sophisticated understanding of algebra. He'll organize data in ways to make sense of statistics and probability. The cognitive ability to categorize information, which starts to develop at this point, will help in other course work, too.

SOCIAL
You'll notice your child:

Concentrating on establishing one or two very close friends ("best friends"), but otherwise not be as focused on friendship as you may think. At this age, children's insecurities will make it more difficult - and less important - to belong to a cohesive group. They're too preoccupied by their own lives to pay too much attention to anyone else's, so they usually hone in on one or two friends of the same age and sex. These friendships consist of constant comparisons: of physical changes, opinions, clothes, you name it. They will expect, and probably receive, loyalty from each other.

Being very concerned with keeping up with all current "pop culture" trends: Fitting in at school often depends on what your favorite television show, musician and movie is that month. Fads are constantly changing, so don't be surprised if by the time you've finally memorized the names of the band members in his favorite pop group, he declares that the group is totally out.

Comparing you and your family to that of his friends. This can take the popular form of "Jeremy's parents always drive him to the mall," to more pointed comments, such as, "Why don't you wear lipstick? Jenny's mother does." Take solace in the knowledge that Jenny and Jeremy's parents are probably hearing how great you are, too.

EMOTIONAL
You may sense your adolescent is:

Developing low self-esteem. Girls seem especially concerned about their appearance and physical development. Why? In part because they've been paying close attention to the images and standards associated with the feminine ideal, and they're internalizing them now more than ever before. A seventh-grade girl may misinterpret "You look awful" to mean "You are awful." According to one study, only 16 percent of preteen girls hope that nothing about them changes during adolescence. Among those who wish they could change something about themselves, 13 percent weren't satisfied with their intelligence, 44 percent weren't satisfied with their looks, and 45 percent would alter their weight.

Starting to search for his true "self." He'll be modifying his self-perceptions and adopting new ones. This search for self will affect his relationship with you, the rest of his family, his friends and his schoolmates.

Less concerned with his comportment: Young teens tend to be messy and often have poor hygiene, skipping baths or showers and bringing food to their bedrooms (with no plans to take the dishes back to the kitchen).

PHYSICAL
Your child's development will:

Probably land somewhere in the very wide range of "normal" development for boys and girls of this age. How wide? Look at any seventh-grade class: Many of the girls are bigger than the boys, but some aren't; a few girls and boys still look more like little kids than teenagers; a couple of boys are quite tall and look like high school students. But most appear a little more mature than children but far from full-fledged teenagers.

Mean that he experiences hormonal changes. This in turn will cause him to be moody - slamming doors one minute, ecstatic at a phone call from a friend the next - and might also mean dealing with the teenage scourge: acne.

Fascinate him. He may spend a lot of time inspecting his body, looking for pimples, checking out any new sexual development or just staring at himself in the mirror, wondering how he'll turn out.

Girls
In general, a girl's growth spurt starts when she's about 9. It ends within a year of her first period, which is now at a national average of 12 1/2 years old. Her breasts are growing from the "bud" stage of the preteen years. To prevent anemia, adolescent girls need extra iron in their diets once they begin menstruating.

Boys
In general, a boy's growth spurt starts when he's about 13. He can be chubby before he starts to grow taller, and then he can seem too thin. Hair is now visible in armpits, on legs and arms, and a slight mustache will form. His sweat glands are changing, and he will probably want to start wearing deodorant. Boys can use extra iron in their diets to aid muscle growth and development.

CHALLENGES

Things at home can really start to change once your child begins puberty. Your teenager could seem like a stranger; you may have to start a new relationship with him. To make things even more difficult, his changing sense of identity can make it tough to predict how he'll respond at any given moment.

In a typical year, about 1 million teenagers run away from home, and they're usually between the ages of 11 and 15.

Sixty percent of boys try chewing tobacco by age 11 or 12, and 7 percent use it daily. The average reported usage - three to five dips of chewing tobacco per day - contains as much nicotine as 10 to 13 cigarettes. Smokers who stick with their habit usually light up for the first time around age 12.

Middle school academic work is significantly different from that of elementary school. Homework is certainly more of a factor, as is test-taking. The grades she receives on quizzes and tests will be factored into her "average," without as much of a chance for things like class participation to help boost her overall grade.

HOW TO HELP

If your child shows an interest in a particular subject, give her a gift subscription to a magazine on that subject for her very own. Kids this age love to get mail, and it will foster her reading habit.

Ask him to figure out any percentages, fractions or decimals you encounter while shopping together: sale items, tax, or how much your gas should total. Not only will it allow him to show off his ability to do such computations in his head, he will also learn how much things cost.

Allow her to spend a good deal of private time with her close friends. If you to plan an activity for them to do together, once they're engaged in the activity, slowly remove yourself from the situation. She's learning a lot from these friendships and could probably use your help to foster them.

If you discuss the consequences of risky teen behavior - smoking cigarettes, having sex, drinking alcohol - bear in mind that he won't be very receptive to conversations of events that seem far off and unlikely to him. For instance, warning him that smoking could result in lung cancer probably won't make much of an impact. Instead, talk about the unsavory smell of stale smoke on his clothes, nicotine stains on his teeth or the impression his smoking would give to a respected adult.