You don't need to pass parameters to your car to start it. You don't need to force yourself to only focus on the recipe (scope) when making dinner.
None of these things map very well with the real world and could also be considered additional mental overhead when learning. You don't need to know how to code to learn best known practices in building software.
Learn things one at a time; "best practices" can wait til you can demonstrate why it is a best practice. Why should I make a function? Until you actually face the problems that abstractions are used to solve, learning them is confusing and difficult.
This also happens in math quite a bit. There is a knowledge gap when teaching concepts like derivatives for the first time. So we are told to initially ignore details while learning.
In my experience, it's best not to delay learning the details. You don't have a real understanding of something until you understand the details.
However that makes even less of a case for Python.