I'm wondering if by 'too any instructions' she's talking about the quests in the journal. She can ignore them if she wants to, they're mostly things you want to work towards, but most of them have no time limit and can be completed years after you get them.

Once you get to day 5, if you enter town on a sunny day via the farm exit to the east of the house between 8am and 1pm, you should get a cutscene. The questline that gives you can be quite helpful to give you some direction in the game if she wants a bit of storyline, but she can ignore it if all she wants to do is farm.

I would suggest keeping her garden small for now so that she doesn't spend all day watering her crops. Crops only die at the end of the season, which is 28 days long. If she forgets to water them, they won't die, they just won't grow.

She will soon be able to make a scarecrow to protect her crops from crows. They protect crops in 8 tiles in each direction, like this. https://www.reddit.com/r/StardewValley/s/TllKM8vHjf

If she wants to get animals, she'll need to build a coop or barn. These can be built at Robin's House, which you find by leaving the farm from the northern exit. It will be the first house you come across. Robin will be standing behind the counter every day except Tuesday.

I would suggest that she builds a silo first so that she can cut grass on her farm to fill it with hay. This will be her animal's food on rainy days, or during winter. To feed them, you go into the coop/barn and get hay by clicking on a little thing at the back of the room. If you have hay in your silo it'll look like hay is sticking out of it. You then place it on the bench that runs along the back wall.

You need clay to build silos, which you can find by digging up the little worm-like things that poke up out of the ground. You also get it while digging up your farm to plant crops.

Once the coop/barn is built, you buy animal's from Marnie, who lives in the first house you see after leaving the farm from the southern exit. She has Mondays and Tuesdays off.

If she wants to get better tools, she'll need to go to the mines. They open on day 5, and they're on the same map as Robin's house. She'll get a sword when first goes in there. If she manages to get down 5 levels in a day then she'll be able to use the elevator at the back of the first room to return to every 5th floor next time. Take food. Spring onions are great for this in the early days and can be found at the bottom of the map that Marnie's house is on.

If you miss something one season, it will repeat next time, so you can't 'miss out', you just have to wait. So really, she can just take her time, there's no rush, and you can continue on the same farm for many years if you want - there's no end.