The Guardian reports that Facebook's child-friendly system would allow under-13s to sign up under the supervision of a parent.
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The Mark Zuckerberg-owned company is reportedly planning the system to comply with the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits collecting personal data from those under the age of 13 without "verifiable parental consent".
According to the patent - which was submitted in November 2012 - a parent would have to verify their own identity and the relationship with the child to get their account started.
A selection of tools would be available to parents to decide on the applications their children were allowed to use, the content they could see and who they could be friends with.
The move would help Facebook legitimise an estimated 5.6 million underage users who have lied in order to sign up to the social network, in a safe and more appealing way to parents.
Facebook responded to the publication by saying: "Child safety advocates, policymakers and companies have discussed how best to help parents keep their kids safe online.
"Like any responsible company, we looked at ways to tackle this issue, but a patent application based on two-year-old research is not a predictor of future work in this area."