Frankie Bridge voices fears about her sons’ mental health amid the Covid-19 pandemic

She’s spoken openly about her mental health battles.

And on Tuesday, Frankie Bridge, 32, voiced her fears about the mental health of her two young sons amid the Covid-19 pandemic, during an appearance on Loose Women.

The former Saturdays star – who shares her boys with husband Wayne Bridge – explained that Parker, 8, is struggling to understand the need for lockdown while Carter, 5, is scared of germs. 

The Loose Women panel were debating if kids should be made to repeat a school year, because of the pandemic while led to Frankie opening up about how her sons are struggling mentally at home.  

Frankie explained: ‘I think it’s a really hard one because, like you said, everyone is in a different situation.

‘I think for me personally, our son Carter he repeated reception this year, so for him to go back and do reception for a whole other year doesn’t make sense. Where does it end?

‘There’s going to be a knock on effect on that further down the line. For me, personally, I worry less about their education and more about their mental health.’ 

Detailing how her sons are coping amid the lockdown, she said: ‘I know my eldest son is really missing all his friends, he finds it hard to understand why he can’t see them.

‘My youngest, who is only five, turned around to me last night and said “mummy I’m scared, I’m scared of germs, I’m scared if my friends get too close to my face and don’t listen to the teacher”, and he’s five and I wondered if he should really be worried about that?

‘I’m not particularly funny about things like that at home. I just think if someone that young is picking that up, how are other kids going to be effected about it?’

Elsewhere, the panel were talking about the new Framing Britney Spears documentary and the dangers of being a child star in the industry.  

Talking about her S Club Juniors days, Frankie admitted: ‘It’s that same thing for me and lots of young people in the spotlight. It’s hard to be so successful when you’re young and trying to continue that when you’re older.

‘I think as a child you do take on a lot of worries for a lot of people, I thought I had to be successful for my parents and my friends.

‘It’s not until I became a parent myself that I felt for them [her parents], they were between a rock and a hard place: Do we hand her over to someone else or do we not let her do it, and she resent us forever? I feel they made the right decision…

‘I still essentially had a breakdown at 21. If that happened if I was in the public eye I don’t know. I see why that happens to other people, and how they get into drug abuse and stuff like that.’

Speaking about life after S Club Juniors, Frankie explained: ‘Yeah, at first it was a novelty, I worked in a shop and I worked in a bar.

‘It wasn’t until someone who made a comment, saying ‘aren’t you that girl who worked in s club junior, and you’re working in a shop?’ My friends were going to university and I didn’t know what I was going to do.’