A good pencil, and some black markers is always good to have around, and you do need a digitizer of some sort to really use Krita. We bought a Wacom Intuos in A4 size for my daughter three years ago and it has really been used, so it was a fine investment, but she still work in pencil a lot and technology does not substitute the pencil any day soon.

It is true that they have to take the decision themselves. My daughter was a art-hater when she was small, so when she started making manga drawings I kept very quiet until one day she asked me to help her to get an anatomical detail right. After that it was no problem :)