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Personally, I really like the work Tony did on the photo.

 

I have zero problem with the small brighter areas on the shoulder and hair of the boy.  To me, these bright areas help give the image depth. In fact, they look like highly desirable rim lighting used in better studio shots to increase the sense of three dimensionality, and help separate subjects from the background.  If I was forced to nit-pick Tony's tweaked version, my only comment would be that his selection gets a bit too sharp and artificial looking in some areas.  OTOH, hey, this is a freebie, and we all have limited time to give to requests like this.

With respect to his suggestions to the OP on how to improve her photography, I also have no problem when someone does this in a kind and gentle manner, which he did. Many, many people incorrectly think that it takes hardly any time or effort to fix anything in PS, so why learn basic photographic technique.  In reality, kneeling down to be on the same level (or slightly below the subject), leveling the camera, and selecting a less confusing background might take seconds, whereas it could take many tens of minutes to correct such problems after the fact in PS, and the results will rarely be as good as getting it right in the first place.  So, I think it's entirely appropriate to toss in a bit of photography education when someone asks for help with their picture.  Doing so will likely help this particular person with future photos she takes, as well as get the message out to others who may read this thread.

Just my $0.02,

Tom