If he is interested in the electronics side, it is still way faster/easier to first learn to program so we knows how to write a working "hello world" when powering up his first own design.

Multimeter and scope are good to have. But much of their use relies on the user also being able to make the processor produce some meaningfull stimuli from the inside.

Lots of processors will not spin up any external crystal oscillator if they don't get a command to do so. They start with internal RC oscillators (allowing cheaper designs for situations where you don't need exact timing - lasertrimmed RC oscillators are still fine enough for UART baudrate generation).

And lots of processors starts with all I/O pins in input mode - potentially with a weak internal pull-up to avoid having the pins floating.