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Originally Posted by denim
I like the second picture a lot. There are a few things to notice there for you to think about. See how everything closest to you and centered is in focus, and the rest is quickly out of focus? That has to do with a lens attribute called "depth of field". It refers to how much will be in focus beyond what you're focusing on. You can use this to emphasize part of the image by making sure unimportant bits are out of focus.
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Not necessarilly unimportant - in fact in some of my shooting I'll focus on, say, a plant while my subject is out of focus. In the right situation, that too can tell a story. But the great thing that good use of depth of field does is to emphasize 3 dimensions. Whether you're shooting still or video, your image will be on a 2-dimensional surface. The whole thing is gonna be the same distance from your eye, so a big clue to your eyes that there is depth in the scene is now gone. But if you have something sharply in focus and something else sharply out of focus, it really emphasizes that 3D depth.
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I agree that candid shots are better. It makes it hard to take pictures of small children, 'cause they can get to a point where they see a camera, stop what they're doing, and pay attention to the camera. 
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Yup, if you think the still camera's bad, try going in with a huge 35 pound betacam
Several tricks you can use to get away from this - let the kids see the camera for awhile, they'll learn about it, then lose interest, or just be there for a long time and they'll eventually lose interest in you, assuming there's something interesting to pay attention to instead. As a last resort tell 'em "if you wanna be (on tv/in pictures) you have to pretend I'm not here) - - but that's a very last resort since you then have to sit through 10-15 minutes of the kids poking each other and telling each other to ignore the guy with the camera
It's a LOT easier, though with a still camera, and even easier with this kind of still camera. It looks like a regular little camera, the kids might be interested in you for awhile because you're a stranger, but eventually they'll lose interest. It's when you come in with the aforementioned giant video camera or the professional still cam from the newspaper (doesn't help when the supervising adult tells everyone you're from the media) that the kids start getting obnoxious about it.