The Duchess of Cambridge has spoken about the pressures of motherhood as she launched a new national family helpline aimed at supporting parents and their children.

Kate, a mother of three, sympathised with the parenting problems of others when she chatted to volunteers manning the FamilyLine service run by the charity Family Action, telling them: “Everybody experiences the same struggle.”

With three children under the age of six – Prince George, five, Princess Charlotte, three, and Princess Louis, who is nine months old on Wednesday – Kate is focused on improving early years support for children and their parents.

She has established a steering group of experts which meets monthly, and her visit was hosted by David Holmes, chief executive of Family Action, who is a member of the project.

As Kate chatted to the volunteers she joked about the help available to mothers: “You get a lot of support with the baby years… particularly in the early days up to the age of about one, but after that there isn’t a huge amount – lots of books to read.”

At the charity’s offices in Forest Hill, south London, the duchess listened to a role-playing training session where volunteer Sagari Sarkar answered a mock call from a mother struggling to cope with looking after her baby alone.

Kate meets families, young carers and volunteers at FamilyLine
Kate meets families, young carers and volunteers at FamilyLine (Adrian Dennis/PA)

Ms Sarkar, a mother-of-three, said about Kate’s parenting comment: “I think it makes her human, it makes her in touch. She’s a parent, a very active parent, and I think that’s what people like about her.

“Why she’s a great supporter of our service is that she does recognise that families have the same pressures and struggles and she’s no exception. She may have slightly different circumstances to the rest of us but, you know, being a parent is being a parent.”

FamilyLine has had a soft launch, running for around a year, and provides a telephone line, email and text service for anyone struggling with family life, from parenting and relationship difficulties to mental health and wellbeing.

Kate receives a bouquet of flowers as she leaves
Kate receives a bouquet of flowers as she leaves (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

The service aims to provide immediate and long-term support, practical information and guidance, and help with accessing relevant services.

Family Action is celebrating 150 years of working to help families looking for support, and today it helps about 45,000 families every year in Britain through 150 specialist services.

Kate met a number of families being supported by Family Action, which was established in 1869 as the Charity Organisation Society, by a group of social reformers including the then prime minister William Gladstone and critic John Ruskin.

She chatted to Dawn Daley, 46, from Islington, north London, who is supporting her niece Deidre Greenaway, who is trying to cope with bringing up her young son and daughter.

The women, originally from Montserrat, a British overseas territory, contacted Family Action last autumn after Ms Greenway discovered her children have the condition neurofibromatosis, which causes tumours to grow along nerves.

Ms Daley said about Kate: “She was really interested in what we had to say, asking us questions. She was really, really interested in everything, how they support us, where they support us.”

The group watched Family Monsters, the charity’s new campaign film produced to mark its 150th anniversary.

The campaign highlights the hidden monsters many families face, such as debt, addiction, lack of time together, relationship problems and mental health issues.

Before leaving, Kate also met a group of young carers, some not yet teenagers, who were supporting a family member, and praised their efforts.