This image has a number of things that detract from it, IMO - it's compositionally not very interesting (centered subject), focus is a bit soft, and really needs some post-processing as it's a bit dark and "flat."
Simple is good but your technicals, namely your exposure (too underexposed) and composition (too static) held you back. One thing that might have given this more energy is a diagonal composition. For example. have the arm enter the top left corner and extend towards the bottom right corner and frame it portrait style. In other words, the hand would be extending towards the viewer rather than away. The diagonal composition would elongate the arm and enhance the "giving/receiving" aspect to the shot. If you brought the camera down a bit you could then give it a shallow DOF by shooting with a wide aperture to create a focal point for the eyes to gravitate to.
Ahhh, the precious memories. I light the bokeh (the out of focus region behind your subject), but the child's hand is underexposed and too centered in the shot. Find a third and crop it there.
This shot could be a lot better if it wasn't centered. The use of dof is great to make the background simple, you didn't cut off the arm on a joint, a lot of great things in this shot. Just work on the composition to make it more interesting.
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