The one on the left of the three boys first. Stunning. As good as it gets for even some of the best. I mite work it up a bit differently in post, though what you have certainly works.
The one on the right on the other hand doesn't work and nothing will fix it. You basically had an f8 exposure, and too slow a shutter speed. I love the effect you were trying for myself, but you got to nail it or it is just not there. Sharp focus in the front and sharp focus in the rear and all that confusion in the middle isn't great photography, it is just an effect in areas that caught your eye. There isn't even a reasonable crop that can fix all this confusion. You want only a SINGLE point of focus, and the rest confusion so it draws your eye naturally to the focal point. Start shooting wide open and just learn to live with tossing out a lot of tries that get close, but just don't make it. The few that do make all that work not wasted, but an exercise in patience. Something we can all use more of.
I'm also going to share a couple of things my own mentors have passed down to me. First thing everybody needs to learn to become a great photographer is to become a great editor first. Editors serve a very valuable purpose, they edit the thousands of images a photographer submits and distill the selection down to a few great frames. Be this editor. Be absolutely brutal in your cutting. Accept absolutely nothing but your very best, and even rotate those out of your portfolio when you produce better to replace them with. And you will most certainly create better work if your standards are at the very top end.
Editing is not about choosing the winners, it is about loosing the posers all vying for your attention, and then seeing what's left on the table, if anything.
Two rules I use:
1) "If any doubt, toss it out."
2.) Photos either work, or they don't. If they work, nobody cares about my justification for showing it, it works and we all appreciate the beauty of it for what it is, a finely crafted image.
If it doesn't work, nobody cares about my justification for showing it either, it simply doesn't work. Great photography has always been done in the world of blacks and whites. It works, it doesn't work. It never "almost" works but I'll post it anyway cause nobody else will notice if I slip it in between a couple great shots that I know do work.
Hope this helps, and do keep on shooting those portraits. You have some real talent there that can be developed even more with practice.