The worst thing you can do for a kid's intelligence is to let them think they are smart. I was led to believe I was smart as a child. The resulting intellectual cockiness I had... "I'm too smart for this shit." or "I don't need to study for this crap."<p>In the end, I don't really like to think about how far it set me back.
This was my experience too. I just did all the questions in the textbook.<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2496430" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2496430</a><p>I had a book just filled with proofs. After a while, you will get an intuitive understanding of where to go next after each step.