In Creative mode, he doesn't have to create anything, because everything that can be crafted is immediately available to him. The same key that shows him his personal inventory in Survival mode would show him every single available item in Creative mode. He just has to look through the different tabs... there's one for building blocks, another for tools, etc. If he can't find what's in a specific category, there's a search function there in Creative mode.
Survival mode has various levels of difficulty, ranging all the way down to Peaceful, which means, "no monsters at all." That can be changed on the fly in the Options screen.
And if he selects the option to Allow Cheats when creating a world, he can easily toggle through the various game modes during game play. So he may, for instance, prefer to explore, collect, and build up to a certain level in a Survival world in Peaceful mode before adding monsters. He may want to have monsters but be able to switch into Creative mode to build his initial home, fly out of trouble, etc.
My DD9 has become quite the little typist and highly familiar with line command structure in this way. All of the cheat commands are described on the Minecraft wiki.
If he wants to play in Survival mode, with monsters, but still stay safe, then there are things that can be done to minimize risk:
1) Stay in the light. Monsters only spawn in the dark, so light up an area with torches around his home to keep them away. Sunlight kills most of them (creepers are a notable exception). Go home at night and sleep.
2) If night sets in, and there's no safe haven available, grab some nearby blocks of dirt or whatever, and build a simple tower by hopping up and placing blocks under you.
Or, use the cheat command "/time set 0" to bring back the dawning sun.
