I agree with your post. Very intelligent kids figure out that they are very intelligent. Our 2nd grader (by age he would be a 1st grader) is doing Singapore Math 5 at home, and he knows can do work 4 years ahead of his age because he is good at math. There is the danger that believing one is talented at something can cause one to slack off because even a little effort will let one get by. My answer to that is to challenge my son not just to do well in math at school but to participate in contests such as the Math Olympiads or Math Kangaroo where he is competing against the best students in the country.
